The United States has the strongest military in the world. With a defense budget approved by Congress on November 14 of over $700 billion, the U.S. spends nearly three times more than all other 28 members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization combined. It also has approximately 1.3 million active duty military personnel. Nearly 200,000 of these troops are deployed at any given time throughout more than 170 countries and the U.S. has almost 800 military bases around the world.
Many of the U.S. troops around the world are there because of bilateral security agreements with certain countries to help protect them. But many American troops have been deployed because of the Global War on Terror (GWOT) launched by former President George W. Bush after September 11, 2001. Since then, Bush, former President Barack Obama, and now President Donald Trump have used the congressional approval for the GWOT to send troops across the Middle East, Asia, sub-Saharan Africa, and more to combat terrorism.
We're here to break down why U.S. troops are installed in different regions around the world, and what they're doing while there.
Africa
Last month, four U.S. soliders were killed in an ambush in Niger. Most Americans were surprised to learn the U.S. had troops in sub-Saharan African, let alone that they have been deployed in Niger since 2013 to advise and assist Nigerien military counterterrorism operations.
But that’s not all the U.S. is doing on the continent. According to a Vice News report, based on data they obtained from the U.S. Special Operations command, there are 1,700 soliders running 96 active missions in 20 countries in Africa. Most of these missions are to help our African partners fight terrorism, whether that is by training their security forces or by providing intelligence on terrorists.
Asia
The largest U.S. military presence abroad is in Asia, with nearly 39,000 troops in Japan and about 24,000 in South Korea in 2016. Our bases in Okinawa, Japan take up one-fifth of the whole island.
American military presence is meant to keep the tenuous peace that exists in the region and to act as a deterrent and a rapid response to possible North Korean aggression. However, in the last few years, many Japanese and South Korean citizens have increasingly opposed the U.S. presence. This is in part because of concerns that the U.S. will use their bases there to launch a pre-emptive strike against North Korea that would send the region into chaos, but also because of the continuous number of crimes committed by U.S. military personnel against locals.
Europe
The U.S. has maintained a large military presence in Europe since World War II. Germany still hosts the second largest deployment of U.S. troops in the world. Under Obama, in 2012, the U.S. removed some forces from Europe for budgetary reasons, but in 2016, reinstated many of the forces there because of ongoing Russian aggression in Ukraine and Georgia.
Additionally, the military uses its bases in places like Germany, Spain, and Italy to support its ongoing operations in the Middle East and Africa.
Middle East
While the Middle East has the third-largest U.S. troop presence of anywhere in the world (after Asia and Europe), the military has bases across the region and is currently conducting active military operations in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria. Earlier this summer, Trump announced he would keep the military presence in Afghanistan for the foreseeable future, reversing Obama’s to draw down forces there.
Even as Obama worked to draw down the number of troops engaged in combat in the region, he increased the use of drone strikes to go after terrorist targets, resulting in thousands of civilian casualties during his tenure.
Latin America and Caribbean
The military presence in Latin America and the Caribbean has grown in the last few years as the U.S. continues to ramp up its fight against drug trafficking. The military is found in countries including Colombia, Honduras, and Peru, where it works with the host countries to combat drug cartels to stop the flow of drugs into the U.S.
Related: Intelligence Analysis in the United States, Explained
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