New Online Tool Reveals
867 US Military Bases Around the World
The No Bases Campaign / World BEYOND War
(November 24, 2022) — The closing of US bases and the removal of US military personnel from foreign countries are critical to the elimination of war. This campaign is a major focus for World BEYOND War.
Despite the withdrawal of US military bases and troops from Afghanistan, the United States continues to maintain hundreds of military bases abroad in 80 foreign countries and colonies (territories).
These bases are costly in a number of ways: financially, politically, socially, and environmentally. US bases in foreign lands often raise geopolitical tensions, support undemocratic regimes, and serve as a recruiting tool for militant groups opposed to the US presence and the governments its presence bolsters.
In other cases, foreign bases are being used and have made it easier for the United States to launch and execute disastrous wars, including those in Afghanistan, Iraq, Yemen, Somalia, and Libya. Across the political spectrum and even within the US military there is growing recognition that many overseas bases should have been closed decades ago, but bureaucratic inertia and misguided political interests have kept them open.
Amid an ongoing “Global Posture Review,” the Biden administration has a historic opportunity to close hundreds of unnecessary military bases abroad and improve national and international security in the process.
The Pentagon, since Fiscal Year 2018, has failed to publish its previously annual list of US bases abroad. As far as we know, this brief presents the fullest public accounting of US bases and military outposts worldwide.
The lists and map included in this report illustrate the many problems associated with these overseas bases, offering a tool that can help policymakers plan urgently needed base closures.
Read: Drawdown: Improving US and Global Security Through Military Base Closures Abroad.
USA’s Military Empire: A Visual Database
The United States of America, unlike any other nation, maintains a massive network of foreign military installations around the world.
How was this created and how is it continued? Some of these physical installations are on land occupied as spoils of war. Most are maintained through collaborations with governments, many of them brutal and oppressive governments benefiting from the bases’ presence.
In many cases, human beings were displaced to make room for these military installations, often depriving people of farmland, adding huge amounts of pollution to local water systems and the air, and existing as an unwelcome presence.
To explore this database, click on map markers or use the dashboard to make selections:
Why We Built This Database
This visual database was researched and developed by World BEYOND War to help journalists, activists, researchers and individual readers understand the immense problem of excessive preparation for war, which inevitably leads to international bullying, meddling, threats, escalation and mass atrocity.
By illustrating the extent of USA’s empire of military outposts, we hope to call attention to the wider problem. Thanks to davidvine.net for a variety of information included herein.
How You Can Help
Please help spread the word that information about USA’s military empire is available to the public. This database is a work in progress, using information gathered from various public data sources. If you see errors or omissions, please let us know.
World BEYOND War is seeking funding to continue the research, data collection and software development for this project and other related map/database projects highlighting the problems of global militarization. We hope to improve this app in the following three ways:
Include More Countries
The current version only includes data about USA’s foreign military outposts, but future versions of this app will include information about foreign military bases maintained by all nations.
Increased Scope of Data for Each Base
Much information is available about the effect of foreign military bases on local communities and populations. We hope to track more data points covering more aspects of the severe problems caused by these military outposts.
Software Enhancement
World BEYOND War hopes to continue to produce original, high-quality, information-rich presentations for the use of the global antiwar movement. This requires investment in coding and UX skills. We are seeking funding to improve this app, customize it for different types of screens, and allow us to build more information-rich presentations of various kinds.
Please become a World BEYOND War donor to support this and other projects. If you would like to sponsor or become a contributor to our Close Military Bases activities, please contact us. In the meantime, you can learn more about bases and our campaign to close them here.
