Mapping U.S. Military Interventions

Since the United States’ controversial military operation in Venezuela - including the kidnapping of President Nicolás Maduro - and in light of recent threats by Donald Trump to invade a NATO ally, there has been renewed interest in the long history of U.S. military interventions around the world.

American Empire: A Century of Global Military Presence is a new interactive atlas that visualizes how, where, and in what ways the United States has projected power around the world since 1900. The project combines a global interactive map, a timeline of key events, and decade-by-decade charts of interventions, allowing users to explore U.S. military, political, and economic actions across more than a century of history.

What the map shows

At the heart of the project is a world map that shades countries according to three broad categories of intervention:

• Military (red) - including wars, invasions, bombing campaigns, and drone strikes
• Political (amber) - including coups, regime change, and interference
• Economic (green) - including sanctions, embargoes, and economic destabilization

Countries often appear in blended colors where multiple types of intervention overlap. Importantly, the colors fade gradually over 20 years after an intervention ends, but never fully disappear - an effective visual metaphor for how the effects of intervention linger long after troops leave. Clicking on any country reveals a timeline of U.S. actions there.

Global military bases

The map also shows the locations of 418 documented U.S. military installations worldwide, broken into clear categories:

• Major bases (Ramstein in Germany, Camp Humphreys in South Korea, Yokosuka in Japan)
• Medium installations focused on intelligence, logistics, or training
• Small sites such as radar and communications facilities
• Access agreements, where the U.S. can use local facilities without permanent troops
• “Lily-pad” sites, minimal installations for rapid deployment

The creators deliberately avoid the often-quoted figure of “750+ bases,” arguing that many of those are warehouses or fuel depots without clear names or locations.

History, animated

A time slider lets you watch U.S. military presence expand from the early 20th century to today. The story is visually clear: limited overseas reach before World War II, then a massive global footprint after 1945 that never really contracts.

The takeaway is hard to avoid: the U.S. maintains more foreign bases than all other countries combined. Many of these may be forced to close if the USA invades Greenland.

Also See

Military Empires - a map of all foreign military bases around the world