Tuesday, September 20, 2011

Where's the U.S. army now?

where military is.jpg
Map based on publicly accessible sources. Errors and especially omissions are likely.

Is it any wonder that the United States is unable to find the cash to take care of our needs at home? Not when you consider that we've got very expensive troops all over the globe.

Let's see -- there are a host of allegedly friendly countries where the United States has military installations: South Korea, Japan, Germany, the United Kingdom, Italy, France, Greece, Israel, Australia ... probably more. Do we have installations in Canada? I imagine so.

And then there are couple of places where our soldiers are currently fighting increasingly pointless wars: Iraq and Afghanistan.

And then there are the places we consider trouble spots according to Nick Turse:

According to Pentagon documents released earlier this year, the U.S. has personnel -- some in token numbers, some in more sizeable contingents -- deployed in 76 other nations sometimes counted in the arc of instability:

  • Angola, Botswana, Burundi, Cameroon, Chad, Congo, Cote d'Ivoire,
  • Ethiopia, Gabon, Ghana, Guinea, Kenya, Liberia,
  • Madagascar, Mali, Mauritania, Mozambique, Niger, Nigeria, Rwanda,
  • Senegal, Sierra Leone, South Africa, Sudan, Tanzania, Togo,
  • Uganda, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Sri Lanka, Syria,
  • Antigua, the Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Bolivia, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba,
  • the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Guyana, Haiti, Honduras,
  • Jamaica, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru,
  • Suriname, Trinidad and Tobago, Uruguay, Venezuela,
  • Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Macedonia,
  • Romania, Serbia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan,
  • Bangladesh, Myanmar, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos,
  • Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam.

This is simply unsustainable. The only question is whether we'll notice we can't afford it and pull back back or whether many of these people will simply throw us out.

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