List of American military installations
This is a list of military installations owned or used by the United States Armed Forces both in the United States and around the world. This list details only current or recently closed facilities; some defunct facilities are found at Category:Closed military installations of the United States.
An "installation" is defined as "a military base, camp, post, station, yard, center, homeport facility for any ship, or other activity under the jurisdiction of the Department of Defense, including leased space, that is controlled by, or primarily supports DoD's activities. An installation may consist of one or more sites" (geographically-separated real estate parcels).[1]: DoD-3
The United States operates a global network of military installations and is by far the largest operator of military bases in the world, with locations in dozens of nations on every continent, with 38 "named bases"[note 1] having active-duty, US National Guard, reserve, or civilian personnel as of 30 September 2014. Its largest, in terms of personnel, is Ramstein Air Base, in Germany, with almost 9,200.[1][note 2] Due to the sensitive and often classified nature of this information, there is no comprehensive list with the exact number or location of all bases, stations and installations. The total number of foreign sites with installations and facilities that are either in active use and service, or that may be activated and operated by American military personnel and allies, is just over 1,000.[2]
U.S. officials have been accused of collaborating with oppressive regimes and anti-democratic governments to secure their military bases, from Central America to the Middle East, Africa, and Asia.[3] The Democracy Index classifies many of the forty-five current non-democratic U.S. base hosts as fully "authoritarian governments."[3] Military bases in non-democratic states were often rationalized during the Cold War by the U.S. as a necessary if undesirable necessity in defending against the communist threat posed by the Soviet Union. Few of these bases have been abandoned since the end of the Cold War.[4]
Several rounds of closures and mergers have occurred since the end of World War II, a procedure most recently known as Base Realignment and Closure. Anti-racist agitation in the early 2020s led to calls for changing bases to remove the names of Confederate figures who fought against the Union during the American Civil War.[5] The Naming Commission was created by the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2021,[6] and renaming began in December 2022.[7]