Nick Turse reports in TomDispatch that the US Department of Defense is operating “hundreds of off-the-books bases absent from the official rolls.” The Pentagon lists in its official property portfolio 4,775 sites, including 514 overseas outposts in 45 foreign countries. But Turse points out that this excludes hundreds of known US military bases in numerous nations. DoD also publicly acknowledges that it has personnel in more than 160 countries on all seven continents. And the annual cost of deploying these US military personnel abroad and operating these foreign bases approaches $150 billion per year, Turse reports.
The US has 95 percent of the world’s total number of foreign military bases. And scholar David Vine tells Turse “the secrecy is mostly to prevent domestic debate about the money, danger, and death involved, as well as to avoid diplomatic tensions and international inquiries.”