Bases for an Empire

CARDIFF-BY-THE-SEA — Many Americans do not recognize -- or do not want to recognize -- that the United States dominates the world through its military power. Our garrisons encircle the planet, and this vast network of U.S. bases, on every continent except Antarctica, constitutes its own form of empire. The Pentagon has remade the map of U.S. territory in a way unlikely to be taught in any high school geography class. But to understand the size and nature of our imperial aspirations -- and the degree to which a new kind of militarism is undermining our constitutional order -- it's crucial to have a sense of the dimensions of this globe-girdling "Baseworld."

Our military deploys more than half a million soldiers, spies, technicians, teachers, dependents and civilian contractors in other nations. It dominates the oceans and seas with a fleet of aircraft carriers. It operates numerous secret bases outside the U.S. to monitor what the people of the world, including our citizens, are saying, faxing or e-mailing to one another.

Our government installations abroad support an even larger web of civilian industries, which design and manufacture weapons or provide services to build and maintain our far-flung outposts. These contractors are charged with, among other things, keeping uniformed members of the imperium comfortably housed, well-fed, amused and supplied with enjoyable, affordable leisure and vacation facilities. Whole sectors of the U.S. economy have come to rely on the military for their profits.

It's not easy to assess the size or exact value of our empire of bases. According to the Defense Department's annual "Base Structure Report" for fiscal year 2003, which itemizes foreign and domestic U.S. military real estate, the Pentagon occupies 702 overseas bases in about 130 countries and another 6,000 bases in the U.S. and its territories. Pentagon bureaucrats calculate that it would require at least $113.2 billion to replace just the foreign bases -- surely far too low a figure but still larger than the gross domestic products of most countries. The military high command deploys to our overseas bases some 253,288 uniformed personnel, plus an equal number of dependents and Department of Defense civilian officials, and employs an additional 44,446 locally hired foreigners.