U.S. at War

U.S. at War

Infographic Reveals For The First Time That The U.S. Is Now
Operating In 40 Percent of The World’s Nations

By Smithsonian Magazine
Friday, January 18, 2019

Less than a month after the September 11 terrorist attacks on the
United States, U.S. troops—with support from British, Canadian,
French, German and Australian forces—invaded Afghanistan to fight
Al Qaeda and the Taliban.

More than 17 years later, the Global War on Terrorism initiated by
President George W. Bush is truly global, with Americans actively
engaged in "countering terrorism" in 80 nations on six continents.

This map is the most comprehensive depiction in civilian circles of
U.S. military and government anti-terrorist actions overseas in the
past two years.

To develop it, my colleagues and I at Brown University’s Costs
of War Project at the Watson Institute for International and
Public Affairs, along with Smithsonian magazine, combed through
U.S. and foreign government sources, published and unpublished
reports, military websites and geographical databases; we
contacted foreign embassies in the U.S. and the military’s
United States Africa Command; and we conducted interviews
with journalists, academics and others.

We found that, contrary to what most Americans believe, the
war on terror is not winding down—it has spread to more than
40 percent of the world’s countries.

The war isn’t being waged by the military alone, which has spent
$1.9 trillion fighting terrorism since 2001.

The State Department has spent $127 billion in the last 17 years to
train police, military and border patrol agents in many countries
and to develop anti-terrorism education programs, among other
activities.

Because we have been conservative in our selections, U.S. efforts
to combat terrorism abroad are likely more extensive than this map
shows.

Even so, the vast reach evident here may prompt Americans to ask
whether the war on terror has met its goals, and whether they are
worth the human and financial costs.

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