The World's Five Military Empires

Big Think: The World's Five Military Empires

Despite talk of American decline, the U.S. still is the world's only superpower – if by that you mean: the country with by far the biggest military footprint throughout the world.

These maps, produced at the end of last year by the Swiss Institute for Peace and Energy Research (SIPER), show the geographic distribution of foreign military bases for five countries with some of the largest defence budgets (1) in the world.

The United States spent $611 billion on its defence in 2016. According to this map, that kind of money buys you a military presence on every inhabited continent of the world. According to SIPER, the U.S. has 587 bases in a total of 42 other countries, in addition to 4,154 bases on its own territory, plus 114 bases in U.S. overseas territories.

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