Name: Why America’s Most Controversial Military Bases Exist
Uploaded: 2026-03-06T17:11:26.000Z
Duration: 53 min 6 s
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As of 2024, it's been estimated that the US military runs somewhere around 750 bases overseas beyond the sovereign territory of the United States itself, across about 80 or more different foreign countries that span every continent on the Earth, including Antarctica.

Adverbs of degree

There are so many American military bases and so many places, and

so many more are getting built or getting withdrawn from all the time.

And so many more are just top secret and not public knowledge that nobody even really knows exactly how many there are around the world at any given time.

Apparently, because of this, the number usually given for how many overseas American military bases there are is around 750, with all of the known ones that exist today marked on this map that you see now stretched all across the world.

America's global military machine is so all encompassing today that it literally runs more overseas military bases than every single other country in the world does, by several times over.

Roughly 75 to 85% of all the overseas military bases run by all the countries in the world today are exclusively run by the United States, meaning that no other country's military runs anywhere near as comparable a global footprint as America's.

At any given time, there'll be around 170,000 active duty American soldiers deployed overseas to these hundreds of bases around the world, which is roughly comparable to the entire size of the German military, but

The US Almost certainly controls more manned military outposts around the world today than any previous people, nation, or empire before it has in all of human history, which, along with America's technological advantages and massive budget, make the US Military the most formidable armed force that has ever existed in our planet's history.

But rather than America's technological, manpower or financial advantages, it is primarily the US military's logistical capabilities between all of these 750 or so bases around the world that make the American military so globally dominant and really impossible to challenge.

The US Military takes logistics so seriously that within only a couple of years of invading the landlocked country of Afghanistan on the other side of the world, in the middle of Central Asia, and

after overthrowing the Taliban government there, the Air Force flew in a fully operational mobile Burger King to feed the American soldiers fighting there in the middle of hostile territory, and

within time, the US Military had a fully operational Pizza Hut and Dairy Queen set up within the middle of Afghanistan as well.

But nearly everywhere they're located, America's hundreds of military bases are also becoming increasingly controversial, both within the countries where they're located and Back at home within the United States itself, America's hundreds of overseas military bases can be broadly divided into two separate categories.

There are larger, more often permanently installed military bases that house more than 200 troops and typically cost more than $10 million to build, and

which represent about 60% of America's worldwide military bases.

And then there are smaller, more often less permanent military bases that are referred to as cooperative security locations or lily pads, that are set up to be less intrusive, less obvious forward operating sites that typically cost less than $10 million to get set up and have fewer than 200 military personnel staffed within them, which represent the remaining 40% of America's overseas bases worldwide and all across the world, there are some parts of it that have significantly higher concentrations of U.S.

There are relatively fewer American bases present in Latin America, the Caribbean and Africa, and

significantly more bases present in Europe, the Middle east and East Asia.

Germany is the country that's presently home to the highest concentration of American military bases and overseas servicemen in the world, a lasting legacy of Germany's crushing defeat during the Second World War, West Germany's geographic position as a frontline state against the Soviet backed Warsaw Pact during the ensuing Cold War, and

the permanent American military presence in the country that has remained ever since.

At the end of the Cold War in 1990, the US had around 250,000 troops stationed all across Europe.

But after the Soviet Union disintegrated, the Clinton administration began shutting down dozens of bases on the continent and greatly reduced America's total troop presence there by more than half.

By 2021, with Europe having remained fairly calm for decades and major crises having exploded elsewhere that distracted America's military attention to other continents, US Troop levels on the European continent had dwindled down to fewer than 64,000, with about half of that total being concentrated in Germany.

But since Russia's full scale invasion of Ukraine was launched the following year, in 2022, Washington has begun surging tens of thousands of troops back to Europe once again, to the point where today there are around 100,000American troops deployed to the continent, with about 54,000 of them all being deployed to America's various bases in Germany and tens of thousands of others deployed to bases across Italy, the UK Poland, Spain, Romania, Kosovo and elsewhere.

But by far America's single largest and most important permanently installed base in Europe is Ramstein Air Base here in Western Germany, the headquarters for the US Air Force in Europe that serves as the anchor for a sprawling American military complex that houses 54,000American soldiers and more than 5,400American civilian employees.

Ramstein has therefore featured very prominently in America's overseas military operations all throughout its history, serving as a major logistical center for US Aircraft flying from the mainland to pursue operations in Africa and the Middle East.

The Landstuhl Regional Medical center, located just outside of Ramstein, is the largest American military hospital outside of the US Itself, though is used extensively throughout the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq to treat wounded American soldiers.

In 2021, when Afghanistan was evacuated, Ramstein was also used as a major transfer point for thousands of Afghan civilians and soldiers who'd been airlifted out of the country by American aircraft to start new lives and safety in the US mainland.

But Ramstein is also not without its many controversies.

In 2015, it was revealed that the US was using Ramstein as a logistical operations center to transport weapons and munitions to US Backed rebels in Syria fighting in the civil war there without the knowledge or consent of the German government.

Well, even further, it was revealed in the same year that Ramstein was also being used by the Obama administration as a critically important control center for American drones being used to attack targets in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia.

The German government claimed that it was not ever informed about America's usage of Ramstein as a major drone command center.

And in 2019, three Yemeni citizens who lost family members during a 2012 US drone strike took legal action against the German government for having allowed the operation of the drones on their territory at Ramstein.

But since the US has full legal jurisdiction over Ramstein Air Base, Berlin's ability to control what the US Actually does on the base, even without the knowledge or consent of the German government, is very limited.

And this remains true across many of America's other military bases around the world as well, even in Europe.

America's second largest overseas troop concentration in Europe is in Italy, largely based around the headquarters of the U.S. 6th Fleet in Naples and the strategically located Naval Air Station Sigonella.

With around 4,000 US troops and their aircraft positioned on Sicily, roughly in the center of the Mediterranean Sea, which serves as one of the primary stopover points for US airlifts and aircraft bound from the continental US towards the Middle east and the Indian Ocean, the US Also operates out of a major Air Force base in the north of the country at Aviano, home to the US Air Force's 31st Fighter Wing that is one of only a handful of overseas American military bases that is known to store nuclear weapons and underground storage systems.

One of the most controversial incidents concerning the American Military in Italy took place in 2003 when CIA agents abducted an Egyptian Islamist cleric named Abu Omar while he was in Milan while he was seeking asylum in Italy.

He was then transported by the CIA to the U.S.

air Force base in Aviano and then transported to Egypt, where he was imprisoned for four years without any charges, secluded and brutally tortured by the then Mubarak regime.

26 CIA agents operating in Italy at the time were later indicted by Italian prosecutors over the abduction, including the man who was the head of the CIA in Italy at the time, Jeffrey W.

Ten years later, after the Omar Abu abduction in 2013, Castelli was convicted of seven years in prison for his role in the incident by an Italian court, along with three other CIA officials at the time.

But none of them were physically present at the trial and none of them have ever been extradited by the US government back to Italy to serve out their sentences ever since.

The next largest concentration of US forces present in Europe are in the UK, where over 10,000American troops are permanently based, the two largest concentrations being at the twin RAF bases of Laconheath and Mildenhall in the southeast of England.

The US has maintained a permanent military presence in the UK ever since the Second World War, and

despite being officially an RAF station, Lakenheath currently only hosts the US Air Force and their own personnel.

And in recent history, these have been the American bases that have been instrumental in supporting US air operations in Libya and elsewhere in the Middle East.

In 1986, a bomb blew up in a Berlin disco club that was known to be popular with American soldiers and killed three and wounded hundreds of others.

The bombing was quickly traced by American intelligence back to Muammar Gaddafi's regime in Libya.

And then, nine days after the bombing later, under orders from President Ronald Reagan and with the airspaces of France and Spain all blocked off to them, 24 US fighters took off from Blackenheath Air Base to bomb Libya in a retaliatory strike and carried out the longest fighter combat mission ever attempted in the history of the US Air Force, in the process conducting a 14 hour round trip flight.

The finders flew all the way around Europe, through the Strait of Gibraltar, and

then across the Mediterranean towards Libya, where they dropped 60 tons of bombs before turning back around and flying the same route back to Lachenheath again, while the US Sixth Fleet based in Italy, moved in just off of Libya's shores to support the attack.

This is how, within a matter of hours of the order being given by the President, the US military Machine, with its logistical infrastructure already in place abroad, can rapidly attack a target in a faraway location like Libya decades later.

In 2011, US aircraft from Mildenhall and Lakenheath took part in attacking Gaddafi's regime in Libya once again when they sortied out to enforce a no fly zone over the country and bombarded Gaddafi's military on the ground during the Libyan civil war, which ultimately resulted in Gaddafi's overthrow and death.

The US run airfields in the uk, like Washington's other military bases in Europe, are therefore a major part of America's global defense strategy.

And like the rest of them, they're similarly not without their controversies.

One of America's other military bases in the UK is located at RAF Crowdon, which is used by the US Air Force as a major communications station that processes roughly a third of all American military communications in Europe.

In 2019, an American woman who was employed at the base and married to one of the base's CIA agents was driving her car near the base on the American side of the road, which of course was the wrong side of the road in the UK.

As such, she struck and killed a 19 year old British man named Harry Dunne, who was riding his motorcycle on the correct side of the road.

Days after the incident, the American woman fled the country back to the United States and quickly claimed diplomatic immunity for herself with the support of the US government, where she has remained a free woman ever since.

Which has all contributed to a tense diplomatic standoff between London and Washington.

And the situation isn't very much different over on the other side of the world in East Asia, the other highest concentration of American overseas military bases in the world after Germany.

The next two countries that have the highest concentration of American bases and troops are Japan and South Korea, home to roughly 50,000 and 28,500American troops and dozens of bases respectively.

In fact, the single largest overseas US military base anywhere in the world is at Camp Humphreys here in South Korea.

This base is a truly massive complex, costing nearly $11 billion to build, or about half of Brazil's entire annual military budget.

It sprawls across roughly 14 square kilometers, or about a quarter the area of Manhattan.

There are 500 buildings located within the base that are designed to accommodate a total population of 45,000Americans made up of soldiers and their spouses and children.

The base is designed to essentially function as an American military town in the middle of South Korea, complete with American run elementary schools, a middle school and a high school for the soldier's children.

The base even has A suburban American looking water park, an American style gymnasium for children, a movie theater that plays the American editions of films, A massive US Post office to facilitate mail deliveries, and

a huge food court within an American style shopping mall that contains American fast food classics like Popeyes, Burger King, Taco Bell, Pizza Hut, Starbucks and others.

It's designed to be as much of a slice of America as possible that's also home to thousands of American troops and their aircraft that can be rapidly deployed in the event of an emergency nearby with North Korea or China.

And while the government of South Korea is more than happy to host them there as a deterrent force against North Korea, their presence has often still been fairly controversial among some local South Korean citizens.

Most notably in 2002, a US army armored vehicle that was returning back to its base on a public road after conducting training exercises out in the countryside hit and killed two 14 year old South Korean schoolgirls who were walking along the side of the road on the way to a birthday party.

Initially, the two US Soldiers who were driving the vehicle were charged by the US military and military court with negligent homicide, but

the South Korean government sought to transfer the case and try them in South Korean civilian court instead.

The US military refused to do so and the two soldiers were subsequently found as not guilty in the ensuing military run trial which sparked huge anti American protests among several South Koreans across various points in the country.

And America's parallel overseas military presence in Japan is arguably even more controversial.

The US military, like in European countries, has maintained a permanent presence in Japan since the end of World War II, after Germany.

Japan is these days home to the second largest concentration of overseas US forces worldwide.

About 50,000 total troops spread out across 85 different bases all across the country, including the headquarters of the U.S. 7th Fleet.

That includes America's only permanently forward deployed aircraft carrier at Yokosuka, strategically near to the entrance of Tokyo Bay.

But the highest concentration of American forces in Japan for decades have always been within the small far southern Japanese island of Okinawa.

Despite making up only 0.6% of Japan's total land area, 62% of America's military bases in Japan are all concentrated here.

The US military maintains a permanent presence of around 30,000 soldiers on Okinawa, which all on its own would be America's second largest overseas deployment of troops in the world, only behind Germany.

The small island of Okinawa is also densely populated with nearly one and a half million people who live there.

And yet roughly 25% of all the island's land is controlled exclusively by the US military and the 30,000American troops stationed there, and

their presence here is among the most controversial of any of America's overseas deployments worldwide.

For a period of 26 years, from Japan's surrender in 1945 up until 1971, Okinawa and the rest of the Ryukyu island chain that it's a part of were directly controlled by the United States government itself.

During those 26 years of direct American administration on Okinawa, the military recognized Okinawa's highly strategic location as an unsinkable aircraft carrier directly on the edge of the East China Sea, roughly equidistant from major flashpoints in Korea and the Taiwan Strait and relatively nearby to Vietnam.

So dozens of American military bases, airfields, logistics centers, and

other facilities were all constructed on the island over the decades that transformed it into America's most geopolitically valuable asset held in East Asia, an asset that has been used as America's primary forward operating base and staging area for the wars in Korea and Vietnam and as preparation for a potential war against China over the status of Taiwan ever since.

After the islands were given back to Japan in 1971, the US just kept all of the military bases and facilities that it had built up on Okinawa over the past 26 years.

And so Okinawa, therefore continues to remain highly important to the US Military's ability to deter and counter threats in the region posed by China and North Korea, which benefits the Japanese government, who doesn't have to worry about those threats as much themselves.

While the bases are also far enough away from mainland Japan and most of Japan's citizens that they don't really cause too much controversy outside of Okinawa, but