1000 American military bases on every continent except Antarctica

A few online outposts have started to comment on Americas enormous collection of international military bases. The United States maintains the largest collection of foreign military bases in world history. Officially, at the beginning of 2011, there were 1,429,367 American troops stationed in 150 countries worldwide. This number does not include contractors who outnumber troops in Iraq and Afghanistan or the operations of the CIA or other secretive units.

Anthropologist David Vine spent three years researching the changing structure of America’s military bases worldwide. His research found a network of more than 1000 American bases, located on every continent except Antarctica.

“While the collection of Cold War–era giant bases such as those in Germany are shrinking, the global infrastructure of bases overseas has exploded in size and scope” David Vine posted online at TomDispatch.com.

He describes “a new generation of bases the military calls “lily pads” (as in a frog jumping across a pond toward its prey). These are small, secretive, inaccessible facilities with limited numbers of troops, spartan amenities, and pre-positioned weaponry and supplies… Around the world, from Djibouti to the jungles of Honduras, the deserts of Mauritania to Australia’s tiny Cocos Islands, the Pentagon has been pursuing as many lily pads as it can, in as many countries as it can, as fast as it can.

Although statistics are hard to assemble, given the often-secretive nature of such bases, the Pentagon has probably built upwards of 50 lily pads and other small bases since around 2000, while exploring the construction of dozens more… not to mention 11 aircraft carrier task forces — essentially floating bases — and a significant, and growing, military presence in space. The United States currently spends an estimated $250 billion (A$241 billion) annually maintaining bases and troops overseas.” David Vine posted. Read more >>