By Jules Dufour

Global Research

 

Global Research Editor’s Note

This important analysis and review of US military might by distinguished Canadian geographer Professor Jules Dufour and CRG Research Associate was first published by Global Research in 2007.

US military presence expanded around the World has expanded dramatically in the course of the last five years.  This study is largely based on data for the period 2001-2005.

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The Worldwide control of humanity’s economic, social and political activities is under the helm of US corporate and military power. Underlying this process are various schemes of direct and indirect military intervention. These US sponsored strategies ultimately consist in a process of global subordination.

Where is the Threat?

The 2000 Global Report published in 1980 had outlined “the State of the World” by focusing on so-called  “level of threats” which might negatively influence or undermine US interests.

Twenty years later, US strategists, in an attempt to justify their military interventions in different parts of the World, have conceptualized the greatest fraud in US history, namely “the Global War on Terrorism” (GWOT). The latter, using a fabricated pretext  constitutes a global war against all those who oppose US hegemony. A modern form of slavery, instrumented through militarization and the “free market” has unfolded.

Major elements of the conquest and world domination strategy by the US refer to:

1) the control of the world economy and its financial markets,

2) the taking over of all natural resources (primary resources and nonrenewable sources of energy). The latter constitute the cornerstone of US power through the activities of its multinational corporations.

Geopolitical Outreach: Network of Military Bases

The US has established its control over 191 governments which are members of the United Nations. The conquest, occupation and/or otherwise supervision of these various regions of the World is supported by an integrated network of military bases and installations which covers the entire Planet (Continents, Oceans and Outer Space). All this pertains to the workings of  an extensive Empire, the exact dimensions of which are not always easy to ascertain.

Known and documented from information in the public domaine including Annual Reports of the US Congress, we have a fairly good understanding of the strucuture of US military expenditure, the network of US military bases and  the shape of this US military-strategic configuration in different regions of the World.

The objective of this article is to build a summary profile of the World network of military bases, which are under the jurisdiction and/or control  of the US. The spatial distribution of these military bases will be examined together with an analysis of the multibillion dollar annual cost of their activities.

In a second section of this article, Worldwide popular resistance movements directed against US military bases and their various projects will be outlined. In a further article we plan to analyze the military networks of other major nuclear superpowers including  the United Kingdom, France and Russia.

I. The Military Bases

Military bases are conceived for training purposes, preparation and stockage of military equipment, used by national armies throughout the World. They are not very well known in view of the fact that they are not open to the public at large. Even though they take on different shapes, according to the military function for which they were established; they can broadly be classified under four main categories :

a) Air Force Bases (see photos 1 and 2);

b) Army or Land Bases;

c) Navy Bases and

d) Communication and Spy Bases.

Photo 1. Air Base of Diego Garcia located in the Indian Ocean

Reference : http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Diego_Garcia_%28satellite%29.jpg

Photo 2. Diego Garcia. An Aerial View of two B-52 and six Kc-a135

Reference : http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/facility/images/diego-garcia-ims7.jpg

II. More than 1000 US Bases and/or Military Installations

The main sources of information on these military installations (e.g. C. Johnson, the NATO Watch Committee, the International Network for the Abolition of Foreign Military Bases) reveal that the US operates and/or controls between 700 and 800 military bases Worldwide.

In this regard, Hugh d’Andrade and Bob Wing’s 2002 Map 1 entitled “U.S. Military Troops and Bases around the World, The Cost of ‘Permanent War’”, confirms the presence of US military personnel in 156 countries.

The US Military has bases in 63 countries. Brand new military bases have been built since September 11, 2001 in seven countries.

In total, there are 255,065 US military personnel deployed Worldwide.

These facilities include a total of 845,441 different buildings and equipments. The underlying land surface is of the order of 30 million acres. According to Gelman, who examined 2005 official Pentagon data, the US is thought to own a total of 737 bases in foreign lands. Adding to the bases inside U.S. territory, the total land area occupied by US military bases domestically within the US and internationally is of the order of 2,202,735 hectares, which makes the Pentagon one of the largest landowners worldwide (Gelman, J., 2007).

Map 1. U.S. Military Troops and Bases around the World. The Cost of «Permanent War» and Some Comparative Data

Source: http://www.unitedforpeace.org/article.php?id=884

Map 2. The American Military Bases Around the World (2001-2003)

Source : http://www.globalpolicy.org/empire/intervention/index.htm

Source : http://www.nobases.org

Map 3 US Military Bases Click here to see Map 3

The Map of the World Network “No Bases” (Map 3) reveals the following:

Based on a selective examination of military bases in North America, Latin America, Western Europe, the Middle East, Central Asia, Indonesia, the Philippines and Japan, several of these military bases are being used for intelligence purposes. New selected sites are Spy Bases and Satellite-related Spy Bases.

The Surface of the Earth is Structured as a Wide Battlefield

These military bases and installations of various kinds are distributed according to a Command structure divided up into five spatial units and four unified Combatant Commands (Map 4). Each unit is under the Command of a General.

The Earth surface  is being conceived as a wide battlefield which can be patrolled or steadfastly supervised from the Bases.

Map 4. The World and Territories Under the Responsibility of a Combatant Command or Under a Command Structure

Source : http://www.defenselink.mil/specials/unifiedcommand/

Territories under a Command are: the Northern Command (NORTHCOM) (Peterson Air Force Base, Colorado), the Pacific Command (Honolulu, Hawaii), the Southern Command (Miami, Florida – Map 5), The Central Command (CENTCOM) (MacDill Air Force Base, Florida), the European Command (Stuttgart-Vaihingen, Germany), the Joint Forces Command (Norfolk, Virginia), the Special Operations Command (MacDill Air Force Base, Florida), the Transportation Command (Scott Air Force Base, Illinois) and the Strategic Command (STRATCOM) (Offutt Air Force Base, Nebraska).

Map 5. The Southern Command

Source : http://www.visionesalternativas.com/militarizacion/mapas/mapabases.htm

NATO Military Bases

The Atlantic Alliance (NATO) has its own Network of military bases, thirty in total. The latter are primarily located in Western Europe:

Whiteman, U.S.A., Fairford,
Lakenheath and Mildenhall in United Kingdom,
Eindhoven in Netherlands,
Brüggen, Geilenkirchen, Landsberg, Ramstein, Spangdahlem, Rhein-Main in Germany,
Istres and Avord in France.
Morón de la Frontera and Rota in Spain,
Brescia, Vicenza, Piacenza, Aviano, Istrana, Trapani, Ancora, Pratica di Mare, Amendola, Sigonella, Gioia dell Colle, Grazzanise and Brindisi in Italy,
Tirana in Albania,
Incirlik in Turkey,
Eskan Village in Soudi Arabia and
Ali al Salem in Koweit (http://www.terra.es/actualidad/articulo/html/act52501.htm )

III. The Global Deployment of US Military Personnel

There are 6000  military bases and/ or military warehouses located in the U.S. (See Wikipedia, February 2007).

Total Military Personnel is of the order of  1,4 million of which 1,168,195 are in the U.S and US overseas territories.

Taking figures from the same source, there are 325,000 US military personnel in foreign countries:

800 in Africa,
97,000 in Asia (excluding the Middle East and Central Asia),
40,258 in South Korea,
40,045 in Japan,
491 at the Diego Garcia Base in the Indian Ocean,
100 in the Philippines, 196 in Singapore,
113 in Thailand,
200 in Australia,
and 16,601 Afloat.

In Europe, there are 116,000 US military personnel including 75,603 who are stationed in Germany.

In Central Asia about 1,000 are stationed at the Ganci (Manas) Air Base in Kyrgyzstan and 38 are located at Kritsanisi, in Georgia, with a mission to train Georgian soldiers.

In the Middle East (excludng the Iraq war theater) there are 6,000 US military personnel, 3,432 of whom are in Qatar and 1,496 in Bahrain.

In the Western Hemisphere, excluding the U.S. and US territories, there are 700 military personnel in Guantanamo, 413 in Honduras and 147 in Canada.

Map 3 provides information regarding military personnel on duty, based on a regional categorization (broad regions of the world). The total number of military personnel at home in the U.S. and/or in US Territories is 1,139,034. There are 1,825 in Europe 114, 660, 682 in Subsaharian Africa, 4, 274 in the Middle East and Southern Asia, 143 in the Ex-USSR, and 89,846 in the Pacific.

IV. The Operational Cost of the Worldwide Military Network

US defense spending (excluding the costs of the Iraq war) have increased from 404 in 2001 to 626 billion dollars in 2007 according to data from the Washington based Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation. US defense spending is expected to reach 640 billion dollars in 2008.

(Figure 1 and http://www.armscontrolcenter.org/archives/002244.php ).

These 2006 expenses correspond to 3.7% of the US GDP and $935.64 per capita   (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_of-the_United_States).

Figure 1. U.S. Military Expenditures since 1998

Source : http://www.globalissues.org/Geopolitics/ArmsTrade/Spending.asp

According to Fig 1, the 396 billion dollars military budget proposed in 2003 has in fact reached 417.4 billion dollars, a 73% increase compared to 2000 (289 billion dollars). This outlay for 2003 was more than half of the total of the US discretionary budget.

Since 2003, these military expenditures have to be added to those of the Iraq war and occupation The latter reached in March 2007, according to the National Priorities Project, a cumulative total of 413 billion dollars.

(http://www.janes.com/defence/news/jdi/jdi050504_1_n.shtml),

(http://nationalpriorities.org/index.php?option=com_wrapper&Itemid=182 ).

Estimates of the Defense Department budget needs, made public in 2006 in the DoD Green Book for FY 2007 are of the order of  440 billion dollars.
(http://www.dod.mil/comptroller/defbudget/fy2007/index.html )

Military and other staff required numbered 1,332,300. But those figures do not include the money required for the “Global World on Terrorism” (GWOT). In other words, these figures largely pertain to the regular Defense budget.

A Goldstein of the Washington Post, within the framework of an article on the aspects of the National 2007 budget titled «2007 Budget Favors Defense», wrote about this topic:

“Overall, the budget for the 2007 fiscal year would further reshape the government in the way the administration has been striving to during the past half-decade: building up military capacity and defenses against terrorist threats on U.S. soil, while restraining expenditures for many domestic areas, from education programs to train service”

(http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/02/04/AR2006020401179.html ).

V. US Military Bases to Protect Strategic Energy Resources

In the wake of 9/11, Washington initiated its ”Global War on Terrorism” (GWOT), first in Afghanistan and then in Iraq. Other countries, which were not faithfully obeying Washington’s directives including Iran, North Korea, Syria and Venezuela have been earmarked for possible US military intervention.

Washington keeps a close eye on countries opposed to US corporate control over their resources. Washington also targets countries where there are popular resistance movements directed against US interests, particularly in South America. In this context, President Bush made a quick tour to Brazil, Uruguay, Colombia, Guatemala and Mexico «to promote democracy and trade» but also with a view to ultimately curbing and restraining popular dissent to the US interests in the region. .

(http://www.voanews.com/spanish/2007-03-08-voa1.cfm)

The same broad approach is being applied in Central Asia. According to Iraklis Tsavdaridis, Secretary of the World Peace Council (WPC):

“The establishment of U.S. military bases should not of course be seen simply in terms of direct military ends. They are always used to promote the economic and political objectives of U.S. capitalism. For example, U.S. corporations and the U.S. government have been eager for some time to build a secure corridor for US.-controlled oil and natural gas pipelines from the Caspian Sea in Central Asia through Afghanistan and Pakistan to the Arabian Sea. This region -has more than 6 percent of the world’s proven oil reserves and almost 40 percent of its gas reserves. The war in Afghanistan and the creation of U.S. military Bases in Central Asia are viewed as a key opportunity to make such pipelines a reality.”

(http://stopusa.be/campaigns/texte.php?section=FABN&langue=3&id=24157 ).

The US. are at War in Afghanistan and Iraq. They pursue these military operations until they reach their objective which they call “VICTORY”. According to Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deployment_of-the_U.S.-Military), American troops fighting in these countries number 190,000.  The “Enduring Freedom” Operation in Iraq alone has almost 200,000 military personnel, including 26,000 from other countries participating to the US sponsored ”Mission”. About 20,000 more could join other contingents in the next few months. In Afghanistan, a total of 25,000 soldiers participate to the operation (Map 6 and Map 7).

Map  6.  Petroleum and International Theatre of War in the Middle East and Central Asia

Source : Eric Waddell, The Battle for Oil, Global Research, 2003

Map 7. American Bases Located in Central Asia

Source : http://www.heartland.it/map_centro_asia_ring.html

Map 8. Oil Fields in Latin America

 

Source : http://www.visionesalternativas.com/militarizacion/mapas/mapahegem.htm

VI. Military Bases Used for the Control of Strategic Renewable Resources

US Military Bases in foreign countries, are mainly located in Western Europe: 26 of them are in Germany, 8, in Great Britain, and 8 in Italy. There are nine military installations in Japan (Wikepedia).

In the last few years, in the context of the GWOT, the US haa built 14 new bases in and around the Persian Gulf.

It is also involved in construction and/or or reinforcement of 20 bases (106 structured units as a whole) in Iraq, with costs  of the order of 1.1 billion dollars in that country alone (Varea, 2007) and the use of about ten bases in Central Asia.

The US has also undertaken continued negotiations with several countries to install, buy, enlarge or rent an addional number of military bases. The latter pertain inter alia to installations in Morocco, Algeria, Mali, Ghana, Brazil and Australia (See Nicholson, B., 2007), Poland, Czech Republic (Traynor, I., 2007), Ouzbekistan, Tadjikistan, Kirghizstan, Italy (Jucca, L., 2007) and France….more here