Why America has to maintain Military Bases all over the World ?

Question

Just read about this....America's Military presence is there in several countries, Why ?

(excluding Vietnam, Koreas, Afganistan, Iraq)

Why it has to spend Billions on these campaigns.Are they trying to Dominate by Blackmail ? or Do they declared themselves as World Police ?

Answer 1

very well put "Desertvi" very well put

they have to have them on the ready

Answer 2

The answer is different for every country, but generally speaking, it is because of treaty obligations incurred during the cold war.   I liked how you only gave me three choices:  domination or blackmail or world police.  Yeah right, a better question to ask would be this:  If the US wants to dominate the world, how does it expect to do so by exporting all the good jobs to foriegn powers like China and converting the US economy into a fast food minimum wage economy of illiterates, and also by destroying the education system to the extent that the national SAT average is a C minus and 50 percent of all high school graduates nationally are functionally illiterate.  And this is a country that you think wants to rule the world?  Are you kidding me?

Answer 3

haven't you heard? we've got an empire to run.

Answer 4

World Police.

Answer 5

Feel good policy. the presence of U.S. Military Forces in a foreign country makes that country "feel good." It also bolsters their economy.

It has little if anything to do with military retaliation. In our modern world, we can strike anywhere at any time from remote locations. The boots on the ground in friendly areas are sacrificial lambs.

Does anyone really think that if North Korea decides to invade the south, that the presence of U.S. forces will stop them? They may be able to delay the action, giving us time to respond. But the in place forces would never be able to repel a determined attack. Same was true for Europe during the cold war.

Answer 6

So if someone wanted to invade, they'd have to get by the other bases like in South Korea, Germany, Japan, etc.  

Answer 7

Most of that forward basing was part of the strategy to encircle the Soviet Union during the Cold War and prevent them from acting as the military arm of the Communist International in trying to forcibly extend communism to other countries. That forward basing is being sharply reduced in some areas (notably Western Europe) and being replaced by forward basing in other areas which are seen as threatened by the Hirabah (terrorists) in this Long War.

We remain in Korea and Japan because they are UN Command Forward and UN Command Rear for the Korean Peninsula in compliance with the peace enforcement resolution adopted by the UN Security Council in 1950 after the North Korean invasion of South Korea. Our troops are there because our nation's Congress passed the UN Support Act in 1947 where we codified our commitment to meet our obligations to provide troops for UN Peace Keeping and Peace Enforcement Missions as is required by Article 45 of the UN Charter.

But, even though that is the case, the U.S. is damned if it does and damned if it doesn't.