MANAMA, Bahrain – After weeks at sea, hundreds of young Americans shed their military uniforms for baseball caps and T-shirts and poured forth from the main gates of the heavily fortified U. S. Navy's Fifth Fleet base, a major hub for U. S. naval forces in the Middle East. The aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln had just docked in Bahrain, a small Arab island nation on the southwestern coast of the Persian Gulf. The disembarking U. S. service members were intent on cutting loose for a respite from their national security mission patrolling one of the world's busiest and most volatile shipping lanes. About 200 miles to the east, across a body of water that has seen many tense naval encounters and acts of sabotage, sat America's longtime adversary Iran. It was November 2019. A few months later, the U. S. and Iran would nearly enter into an open confrontation after Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps fired ballistic missiles at two Iraqi military bases housing U. S. soldiers. The attack was retaliation for the Pentagon's assassination of senior Iranian commander Qasem Soleimani. For the sailors, Bahrain's "American Alley" was a taste of home: a thoroughfare of fast-food restaurants and shops catering to Westerners. The sailors clutched iPhones and Starbucks coffee and fended off attempts by locals to sell them watches and other trinkets. For America's military planners back in Washington, the sailors represented a longstanding bedrock of U. S. national security: one of the Pentagon's hundreds of footholds all over the planet. For decades, the U. S. has enjoyed global military dominance, an achievement that has underpinned its influence, national security and efforts at promoting democracy. The Department of Defense spends more than $700 billion a year on weaponry and combat preparedness – more than the next 10 countries combined, according to economic think tank the Peter G. Peterson Foundation. INTERACTIVE: 3 maps show why the U. S. is the 'world's police'The U. S. military's reach is vast and empire-like. In Germany, about 45,000 Americans go to work each day around the Kaiserslautern Military Community, a network of U. S. Army and Air Force bases that accommodates schools, housing complexes, dental clinics, hospitals, community centers, sports clubs, food courts, military police and retail stores. About 60,000 American military and civilian personnel are stationed in Japan; another 30,000 in South Korea. More than 6,000 U. S. military personnel are spread across Africa, according to the Department of Defense. Yet today, amid a sea change in security threats, America's military might overseas may be less relevant than it once was, say some security analysts, defense officials and former and active U. S. military service members. The most urgent threats to the U. S., they say, are increasingly nonmilitary in nature.


All data is taken from the source: http://usatoday.com
Article Link: https://www.usatoday.com/in-depth/news/world/2021/02/25/us-military-budget-what-can-global-bases-do-vs-covid-cyber-attacks/6419013002/


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