FPIF Special Report |
The Cost of the Global U.S. Military Presence
Anita Dancs | July 6, 2009
Editor: Miriam Pemberton
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The U.S. military's global presence is vast and costly. More than one-third of U.S. troops are currently based abroad or afloat in international waters, and hundreds of bases and access agreements exist throughout the world. At the beginning of the 21st century, the government pushed to expand this presence through a variety of mechanisms. Yet the Department of Defense's budget presentations lack enough detail to make it possible to know the precise cost. The budgets don't break down the numbers, for example, on maintaining bases at home and overseas.
Nevertheless, from data on personnel, bases, and the Pentagon's budgets, it's possible to make an estimate. This number comes from the proportion of each branch's budget devoted to military personnel stationed overseas, excluding troops based in and around Iraq and Afghanistan. Since one-fourth of these military personnel are stationed overseas, the overall figure includes one-fourth of the defense-wide budget. Finally, it includes the cost of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the amount of military assistance to other countries. The report does not include subsidies from governments that host bases, three-quarters of which come from Japan alone.
The final bill: The United States spends approximately $250 billion annually to maintain troops, equipment, fleets, and bases overseas.
For the full report, please click here.
Anita Dancs is an assistant professor of economics at Western New England College and a Foreign Policy In Focus analyst.
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Published by Foreign Policy In Focus (FPIF), a project of the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS, online at www.ips-dc.org). Copyright © 2009, Institute for Policy Studies.
Recommended citation:
Anita Dancs, "The Cost of the Global U.S. Military Presence," (Washington, DC: Foreign Policy In Focus, July 6, 2009).
Web location:
http://fpif.org/fpiftxt/6231
Production Information:
Author(s): Anita Dancs
Editor(s): Miriam Pemberton
Production: Jen Doak |
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| Name: |
Jason Walker (jwjob53@gmail.com) |
Date: Aug 27, 2009 |
| Professor Dancs,
Computing the cost of the the U.S. military's global presence is not a complete analysis. The rest of the analysis will answer the question: "What does that $250 billion buy?" Quantifying national security or the protection of national interests is a complex exercise, but a challenge well worth undertaking. I recommend you build a global model that removes the threat of immediate U.S. military action from all friendly and unfriendly state and non-state actors, and then measure the economic, strategic, and political impacts to the U.S. and the world over a given time period. You could then do a sensitivity analysis to determine how much global military presence (in dollar terms) is required to minimize the overall expenditure by the U.S. The lack of global presence could be countered by the U.S.'s significant and rapidly deployable domestically-based military forces.
Considering one controversial region specifically, the Middle East, would also be a useful exercise. If the threat of immediate, locally-based U.S. military consequences were removed from decision makers in Iran, Syria, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Iraq, and all the other local and global actors, how would their actions change, and how would that effect the U.S. and its national interests? How would the global economy be effected in the short and long term?
These are the questions that must be answered by civilian and military leaders, and the answers to them are driving our current military presence. They have evolved over time and resulted in the balance of forces that exist domestically and overseas. This drives decisions ranging from aircraft carrier deployment cycles and operating areas to the number of U.S. troops in Qatar, the Horn of Africa, as well as Iraq and Afghanistan.
"Doing the math" can produce eye-watering figures, but if you don't quantify both sides of the equation you provide your audience with a piece of information that stirs up emotions, but doesn't facilitate any general understanding of what is going on and why. This is incomplete at best. $250 billion may be far too much or far too little, but from your analysis, no one can tell. The full analysis would benefit everyone, so I encourage you to complete it.
Regards,
Jason Walker |
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