By: James Daniels

The involvement of the United States’ military in the Middle East is well known. In recent years, the mainstream media has covered the events in Afghanistan and Iraq on a daily basis. However, these are not the only places with US forces, not by a long shot.

When I ask most people about how many nations they believe the US military is in the answers vary. Some think that, outside of the US, our troops are only in the Middle East, so I get the usual “about two or three” answer. Others are aware of the bases in Germany and Japan, but, much to my chagrin, not a single person I’ve ever asked has stated even a double digit number. Wait, you may think, I don’t hear much about this in the news media. How many countries could there possibly be?

Well, the current number of countries that have a US military presence stands at a whopping 150 of the 193 countries on planet Earth. That’s right, we have approximately 369,000 military personnel serving in 150 countries. Where do these troops tend to go? Well, they go everywhere. There are US troops on every inhabited continent on Earth.

So, how does empire factor into the equation? The case that the current US empire is primarily about oil is not that difficult to prove. Going back for generations, the US’ involvement in foreign affairs has generally had some interest in oil, although you probably won’t find this as the official reason. Perhaps the first widely known example was a joint effort by the US and the United Kingdom (UK). In 1953, the Shah of Iran was overthrown by US and UK intelligence personnel, despite being democratically elected. Coincidentally, the UK had been having issues with Iran for quite some time and just so happened to have it’s largest overseas investment in that country. For it’s part, the US got to share in Iran’s oil wealth.

Let’s fast-forward to modern times. Some experts believe that there are as many as 200 million barrels of oil in the Caspian Sea basin, which is roughly seven times as much as is left in the US. Ever since the collapse of the Soviet Union, American oil firms have sought access to this oil. They are now building a 1,000 mile pipeline across the area, which includes the nation of Georgia. Perhaps not coincidentally, the US has sent millions of dollars worth of armaments and helped to train Georgian military personnel in recent years. Also, think of the relatively recent escalation between Russia and Georgia, in which American troops were deployed to the area. It is hard to believe that they were sent purely for humanitarian assistance, as was the commonly reported reason at the time.

Another example is the Middle East. The US has been known to prop up repressive dictators in this region, most notably in Saudi Arabia. Fifteen of the 19 alleged hijackers on the 9/11 attacks were from this nation, yet Afghanistan was the first target. Why is that? Well, let’s just say that the Saudi government tends to play ball in the global oil game. So, although Saudi Arabia is known as a terrorist hot-spot, they were left out of the military threat that much of the Middle East now faces. However, nations like Iran and Iraq, which have had histories of not playing ball with the US, were targeted or are still facing threats. Iran is currently surrounded by 10 countries that have US forces in them and threats have been leveled at them from time to time. Obviously, Iraq has already seen it’s fair share of US involvement.

In closing, let’s look at the costs of all this. The US currently is responsible 46.5 percent of the world’s total military expenditure. In second place comes China at 6.6 percent. In other words, the US spends over seven times as much money on it’s military as the second leading country, even though that country has a population that is well over four times larger. In terms of lives lost, the costs are incalculable. How does one value the life of an innocent civilian that was lost in a war that was about empire? How does a mother value the life of a son lost in a battle to favor a few elites? Could the trillions of dollars that have been spent building an informal empire been used to better the lives of many in the world? How many tax dollars could have been left in the pockets of those who earned them? To be clear, the stated examples were only a small fraction of the cases in which the US has gotten involved in foreign affairs to serve an apparent interest of a few powerful elites, usually with respect to oil. I think this is something we should all consider carefully in the coming years when going to the polls, especially in 2012.