Ever since World War II, the United States has maintained a significant military presence in countries across the world. The Korean War in the early 1950s saw a dramatic surge in troop levels, followed by sustained high deployments during the Vietnam War in the 1960s. After the U.S. withdrawal from Vietnam, overseas deployments declined in the 1970s but remained steady through the Cold War as the U.S. maintained a global military presence. The early 1990s brought another spike during the Gulf War, followed by a new era of large-scale deployments after 2001, driven by the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. In the past decade, troop levels have gradually stabilized at lower levels, reflecting a shift away from prolonged ground wars toward a more strategic global military posture. This historical ebb and flow of U.S. military presence abroad tells a broader story of war, diplomacy, and America's evolving role on the world stage.
Following is an analysis of where troops have been deployed in specific locations, and the reasons for their presence. The data for these graphs come from Troop Data, which is maintained by Michael A. Allen, Michael E. Flynn, and Carla Martinez Machain. Their data comes from 2022. The deployment data were initially compiled by Tim Kane using information obtained from the U.S. Department of Defense's Defense Manpower Data Center (DMDC). The original data ended in 2005 and we have updated it to run through 2024.
This is a project of the S.I. Newhouse school's Data and Digital Journalism class taught by Prof. Dan Pacheco. See the code for this page on its Github repository.
Antarctica
Since the mid 1950’s, the United States has engaged in a number of expeditions with the goal of scientific research and exploration of Antarctica, code named, Operation Deep Freeze. Starting in 1955 and ending in 1956, Deep Freeze 1 paved the way for future operations, establishing the first permanent research station. This operation was actually filmed by the U.S. Navy and by Walt Disney Studios, leading to Walt Disney himself becoming an honorary member of the expedition. Source.
Following the first expedition, Operation Deep Freeze 2 and 3 both resulted in expanded scientific research and infrastructure in the area, with a specific focus on the construction of the South Pole Station. Ultimately, most of the military activity within the area over the last decade can be summed up to transportation and logistical services for the scientists involved. Since then, the National Science Foundation and U.S. government turned it over to contractors where the stations produced by Deep Freeze now live. There is not a lot of available information on these operations, or American troops in Antarctica as a whole.
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East Asia & Pacific
There was a spike in troops during 1955, this is mainly due to the aftermath of World War 2, the US still deployed troops into Japan during reconstruction. There were also spikes in 2010 because of the 1960 treaty of mutual cooperation and security . In 2009, responding to North Korea’s Threats: North Korea conducted nuclear tests and missile launches in 2009, heightening regional tensions. The U.S. bolstered its forces in Japan to strengthen deterrence against North Korea. After 2009, the U.S. was shifting its military focus toward the Asia-Pacific region, aiming to maintain stability and reinforce its influence in East Asia.
Europe & Central Asia
Latin America & Caribbean
The US has had a large amount of variance in the amount of troop deployments to Puerto Rico over the last 70 years. During the early 1950s, the Puerto Rican Nationalist Party held an insurgency, which led to the US having a need for there to be large amounts of troops in the region. However, deployments to Puerto Rico steadily decreased over time, falling down to under 200 troops that were deployed under the Bush administration in 2007. President Obama sent troops back to the island, reportedly as part of efforts to fight drug smuggling. Troop deployments then decreased as President Biden limited military spending in the 2020s.
Middle East & North Africa
South Asia
This chart shows the number of U.S. troops deployed in South Asia between the years 1950 and 2024. Before the year 2000, there were less than 700 troops total in the region. As a result of the 9/11 terrorist attacks in 2001, U.S. foreign policy under President Bush changed drastically. At the start of 2002, the number of troops in South Asia jumped by 9,000, with 9,647 total, with the 9,000 additional troops specifically deployed to Afghanistan. Similarly, at the start of the next year (2003), Bush deployed an additional 700 troops to Afghanistan and over 500 troops to the U.S.-U.K. joint military base on the island of Diego Garcia.
As the war progressed, the region’s overall troops continued to grow at a steady pace; the majority of them however being deployed to Afghanistan in specific. After an executive order from Obama in 2009, South Asia reached its peak number of total deployments in 2010 at 99,369- of those troops 99,279 of them were sent to Afghanistan. As Obama began his second term in office, the total troops began to decrease, going all the way down to just over 17,000. Finally, as Biden entered office this number diminished, reaching only six troops in 2021 and zero in 2022.
Sub-Saharan Africa
The United States for the most part has avoided conflict in Sub Saharan Africa. There is one primary spike in U.S. troops being sent into the region, which is when the U.S. attempted to intervene in the Somali Civil War and sent upwards of 6,000 troops to Sub Saharan Africa. The main conflict for U.S. troops in that region was the Battle of Mogadishu, in which the U.S. suffered significant losses and pulled their troops out of the region. Since then, the United States has not had more than 2,000 troops in Sub Saharan Africa.
Outside of the United States' main spike in troops in the early 1990s, there has only been a handful of times in which the U.S. had troops in Sub Saharan Africa. In the mid-2010s, the U.S. got somewhat involved in Somalia, Niger, and a few other nations. However, the U.S. refrained from sending in a large number of troops.In the 1960s and early 1970s, the United States committed a significant amount of troops to the conflict in Eritrea. While the U.S. had troops there for a lengthy amount of time, there was never too high of an influx of soldiers into the country. The U.S. also kept the amount of troops in Sub Saharan Africa below 2,000 in this time frame despite being somewhat involved in the conflict.
Total troops deployed to Eritrea: Total troops deoplyed to Somalia: Return to Top