By Shane Quinn/Global Research

Statistics provided by the US Department of Defense, in 2003, outlined that there were around 725 American military bases positioned that year overseas in 38 countries, including the presence of 100,000 American soldiers in Europe. 

A decade later, by 2012 there was an increase to 750 US military bases in existence globally, including 1.4 million American troops on active duty, figures which are reported through to today. Other estimates suggest the Americans have owned, or maintain authority over, more than 1,000 military installations abroad. The network of bases is so expansive that even the Pentagon may not be sure of the exact number.

In Europe, some of the US military facilities currently in operation date to the Cold War era. Much has changed over the past generation, as many European states have joined the Washington-dominated NATO, an increasingly aggressive military association. NATO enlargement of course continues, despite the fact that membership leads inevitably to significant erosion of sovereignty and independence, especially for the smaller countries which have chosen to join NATO.

Since 2004 NATO-operated spy planes (Airborne Warning and Control System) have been patrolling the Baltic Sea nations and NATO states such as Estonia and Latvia, at the actual borders of Russia, a nuclear superpower. Such actions by NATO as these have resulted in a clear potential for nuclear war erupting, a threat which is increasing as tensions escalate in the Ukraine crisis.

From 1940 to 1996, Washington spent about $5.5 trillion on its nuclear program. This figure does not include the $320 billion, pertaining to the annual storage and removal costs of more than 50 years worth of accumulated radioactive waste, and the $20 billion needed for the dismantling of nuclear weapons systems and removal of surplus nuclear material.

A study by the Brooking Institution in Washington calculated that, from the World War II years until 2007, US governments spent in total $7.2 trillion on nuclear weapons. Washington’s overall military expenditure in the same 6 decade period, taking into account conventional weaponry, amounted to $22.8 trillion. Since the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, America has produced around 70,000 nuclear weapons. When the Cold War was said to have officially ended in 1991, Washington had an arsenal that year of 23,000 nuclear warheads.

The Americans, in the Cold War era, stationed their nuclear bombs in 27 different nations and territories including Greenland, Germany, Turkey and Japan. In spite of the major decline of communism in the early 1990s, the Pentagon in 2006 still possessed 9,962 intact nuclear warheads, including 5,736 warheads believed to be active and operational. The plan has been to maintain between 150 to 200 nuclear bombs in Europe; but one of the final initiatives, of president Bill Clinton (1993-2001), was to sign into law on 29 November 2000 the Presidential Decision Directive/NSC-74, which authorised the Department of Defense to stockpile 480 nuclear warheads in Europe, a substantial amount of them in US-run bases in Germany.

Brazilian historian Moniz Bandeira asked,

“What could be the purpose of keeping 480 nuclear warheads in Europe after the end of the Cold War? Fighting terrorism? President George W. Bush didn’t reduce this level of armament, and all President Barack Obama did was replace antiquated and obsolete nuclear bombs of the free fall variety by other, more sophisticated precision guided systems that could be transported by modern planes at a cost of US$ 6 billion”.

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