Figuring out how many foreign military bases the United States is about as certain as guessing the correct number of marbles in a glass bowl.

 

Writer Nick Turse, who’s written on the subject of U.S. overseas bases, can’t even come up with a solid number, he admits. Ask the Department of Defense on one day, and the number might be 560. Ask another military spokesman and the figure could be 660. Do some research and factor in bases the Pentagon doesn’t even count in its annual report, such as the 400 or so in Afghanistan, and the total can balloon to more than 1,000.

 

“There are more than 1,000 US military bases dotting the globe,” writes Turse. “To be specific, the most accurate count is 1,077. Unless it’s 1,088. Or, if you count differently, 1,169. Or even 1,180. Actually, the number might even be higher. Nobody knows for sure.”

 

According to the 2010 Department of Defense Base Structure Report, the U.S. military owns 172,015 buildings inside the United States with a total size of 1.5 billion square feet. It owns another 202,178 in other countries, covering 1.7 billion square feet. These sites are in nations as far-flung as Djibouti, Bahrain, Colombia, Egypt, Singapore, Greenland, Aruba and Luxembourg.

-Noel Brinkerhoff

 

America's Empire of Bases 2.0 (by Nick Turse, TomDispatch.com)

Can U.S. Still Afford 1,000 Overseas Military Bases? (AllGov)