April 5, 2025:
The United States has had military bases overseas since World War II ended in 1945. These included over 300 installations dispersed throughout 49 countries in Europe and Japan. There were 225 in Germany, but between 1994 and 2014 most of these bases were shut down or transferred to the German Bundeswehr. This gradually changed, especially during the 1948-1991 Cold War. After 1991 American military facilities overseas increased outside Western Europe and by 2024 there were some 800 bases in seventy countries.
By 2009 the dwindling U.S. forces in Europe were turning into museums, literally. There since World War II, American military units casually preserved many historical artifacts. For example, the first U.S. M-4 tank to break into Bastogne during the December 1944 Battle of the Bulge, was found, by checking vehicle serial numbers, to have been sitting in a U.S. base, as a nameless World War II monument, for over fifty years. Many similar discoveries have been made, and military historians, and the army leadership, wondered what to do about it.
The U.S. Army 1st Armored Division established a museum. Although the 1st Armored left Europe in 1946, and only returned in 1971, it was able to collect nearly 3,000 items including 140 tanks, artillery and other vehicles for a museum. Many other units that were there between World War II and today, collected historical artifacts and used them to decorate their bases or just hang on a wall in a base club or headquarters. All of the 1st Armored returned to the United States in the next few years, and officials in Europe were trying to do right by the museum. Established in 1963 in Europe, it has moved around a bit, and now the division is trying to scrounge up the funds to get it back to the United States, and preserve the collection.
But the 1st Armored collection is only a fraction of the artifacts found throughout U.S. military bases in Europe. Many of these bases have already been closed. Some artifacts were sold, some were given away or lost. It's an enormous chunk of U.S. military history, and most of it was in danger of being lost forever.
After spending over half a century years in Europe, the U.S. Army force went from two corps and over six divisions with 18 combat brigades during the Cold War, to the current four brigades. These units are sometimes transferred to combat zones in Iraq or Afghanistan. During the Cold War, there were over 300,000 U.S. troops in Western Europe. That gradually shrank to about 40,000, and by 2025 there were 84,000 U.S. military personnel in Europe.
Worldwide the United States had, by 2021, 642 bases in 76 foreign nations and 159 in overseas American territories. There are American military personnel in 170 nations worldwide. Some of these are embassy military attaches. There are now 100,000 troops in Germany, Italy and Britain with another 56,000 in Japan, 24,000 in South Korea, about a thousand in the nine Philippines bases and 15,000 in the Middle East. There are 123 bases in Germany, 113 in Japan and 79 in South Korea. These include the modest Al Udeid airbase in Qatar and the massive Aviano military base complex in Italy, which hosts a total of 49 American bases.
Broken down by service there are 220 army bases in 29 overseas locations. The U.S. Marine Corps maintains 31 bases, the U.S. Navy 97 and the Air Force has 170 in nine foreign regions including Japan with 52,852 personnel, the Philippines with about a thousand, Germany 34,894, South Korea 23,732, Italy 12,319, Papua New Guinea a hundred or so, Britain 10,180, Bahrain 3,424, Spain 3,253, Poland a few dozen, Turkey 1,683, Kuwait a few hundred, Belgium 1,119, Australia about a hundred and Cuba 572. There are also many temporary sites for special operations.