July 3, 2025: Despite an annual defense budget approaching a trillion dollars, the United States military is more frequently unable to meet all its worldwide commitments. The U.S. Navy was only partially successful suppressing the Houthi threat to shipping in the Red Sea. Subsequently B2 bombers carrying 15-ton bombs eliminated Iranian underground Iranian nuclear weapons facilities. The problem is that American forces are spread worldwide, stationed in over a hundred locations. This enables the U.S. military to quickly react to emergencies. Fighting a war is something U.S. forces are not prepared for. Since the 1990s the American military has concentrated on dealing with the growing Chinese naval threat in the Pacific. The United States has told its NATO allies in Europe that they are on their own.

The problem is that China is not the only threat. There are also potential problems with Russia, Iran, North Korea and Islamic terrorists in the Middle East, Africa and Europe. Inside the United States internal threats can be and are handled by local police and state National Guard units. The National Guard is the largest component of the army reserve system. The Guard is essential for reinforcing army operations overseas that run into manpower problems. The last war that U.S. forces were involved with ended in 2021. That was after American forces had spent two decades seeking to pacify Afghanistan. In 2017 most American forces left Iraq, leaving behind a few thousand troops to help train the new Iraq army and continue dealing with the Islamic terrorists still present in the area.

The United States has allies in most of these areas. South Korea and Japan are taking over sole responsibility for dealing with North Korea. The Americans will return if needed. South Korea has turned into a military superpower and Japan has cast aside the military restrictions imposed after World War II. In the Middle East American forces are under attack by Iran. This came after U.S. bombers destroyed key Iranian nuclear weapons facilities. The Iranian threat is real but rapidly diminishing. Most Middle Eastern nations oppose Iran and support Americans and Israeli efforts to reduce Iranian military capabilities.

In Africa there is lots of chaos and few allies. The goal is to have continued access to essential natural resources. The main threat is Chinese, which seeks most of those resources and is increasingly using armed hired help to make it happen. Russian mercenaries are also active, as allies or competitors depending on the situation. American forces are not a factor. There are some U.S. special operations and air force operations in Africa and they are mainly there to deal with the growing Islamic terrorist threat.

Currently the U.S. army has 58 brigades, 31 of them combat units with four to five thousand troops each. The problem is these units are widely dispersed and the United States has not get enough shipping to get these units somewhere in a hurry. 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. 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 rapidly diminishing. After spending over half a century in Europe, U.S. Army forces there 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. In terms of a major war, the American army is everywhere and nowhere. Plans are underway to change that situation and make forces available for a major war. That will take years, or longer to implement. In the meantime the U.S. will have to stay out of any major conflict and hope that American enemies will cooperate.