Status of Forces Agreements Worldwide
This map of US military presence throughout the world reveals four things:
1. The US military is definitely worried about Iran.
2. The US military is definitely worried about Russia.
3. The US military is definitely worried about China.
4. The proposed Polish base has nothing to do with defending Denmark from Iranian missiles.
It seems likely from viewing this map that the US military is banking on traditional geostrategic positioning being as relevent now as it was two-hundred years ago. It reminds me of the boardgame Risk (good thing the US has already captured Australia), based on the Napoleonic Wars, where you get extra points for securing continents, and basic strategy says that controlling chokepoints, like Iceland, Alaska, Indonesia, and Mexico, is the key to the game. If that were the case with the real world, we could expect the Norse, Inuit, Dutch, and Mayans to be today's major world powers as well as an imminent US invasion of our neighbors to the south.
This map, combined with this recent report from the Hoover Institution, illustrates that the Pentagon seems to disagree with Parag Khanna's assertion in his (previously posted) TED lecture on a borderless world that the empires of the 21st century will be bought, not conquered by standing armies.
Sunday, October 4, 2009 at 1:12PM | tagged China, Iran, Russia, foreign policy, military policy, security in Specific Facts | 4 Comments | Share Article 
Reader Comments (4)
Great chart. I love the complete ring of countries with U.S. bases around Iran. To be fair though, I think the U.S. would have bases in every strategically important country if they could. That China, Iran and Russia are the only countries in their region that don't have U.S. bases isn't just because the U.S. is worried about them, it's because they are the only countries that don't allow the U.S. to put bases in them. Russia has a nice buffer zone around it because of the Cold War, but China has U.S. bases right on its borders in a few places.
I agree. If nationalism and empire building is your goal, it makes sense to have a military presence in every country that allows it. World War II gave the US a foothold in both Europe and Asia that it has added to gradually over the years by bribery, blackmail, intimidation, assasination, and indeed common interest. The US foothold in Latin America and the Middle East were acheived with comparatively little cost. Both China and Russia are too powerful to be strongarmed into allowing US military presence. Most of the proposed new bases seek to take advantage of the chaos left in the wake of Soviet retreat, or in the case of India, paranoia about Chinese expansion. The scary thing is that it seems like the Pentagon is strategically positioning itself for the inevitable 'Clash of Civilizations' predicted by conservative luminary Samuel Huntington in the 1990s.
Also, I think it's interesting that the typical tracks for space-based surveillance bypass the Middle East, a hotbed of weapons production and insurgency, and instead fly directly over both Moscow and Beijing.
"conservative luminary"
hilarious term, but great post. and great subsequent comment battle.