I thought of this question while reading this thread about the top 5 United States allies. The United States maintains military bases in places such as Germany. But is there an example of a foreign nation that maintains a military base on United States soil? Has there ever been an example of this?
Maintain a base? Unless you count the Canadian component of NORAD as a “base” then no
Plenty of NATO allies conduct long-term training at (US) bases all over the US, and some have their own buildings/areas of the bases.
Israel has a military base underneath the Freemason Temple in the middle of Area 51.
True. There have been some pretty large war games exercises involving foreign troops on U.S. soil but the bases are still American installations. I am fairly certain there have not been any foreign bases on American soil in modern times.
No country has ever had the leverage to have one in over 100 years because wars since then have always been fought abroad. The U.S. has more military bases than most people realize. There are bases in about 63 countries around the world with several hundred bases total. Most of these are small but there are some large ones all over Western Europe and Japan because of WWII. Guantánamo Bay in Cuba was set up as a lease in Cuba in 1903 and Castro doesn’t even accept the payments. No other country can set up foreign bases like that.
What about during, and in the immediate aftermath of the war of independence ? Presumably the large number of french troops involved would have been based somewhere prior to their withdrawl ?
Yeah, given history I wouldn’t have expected an equivalency with nations such as Germany and Japan - it is easy to see why the US has bases there but not vice versa. However, it seemed within reason that a close ally like Australia or the United Kingdom would have a shared facility on American soil (like a radar listening post or some communications thing).
So it appears the answer is no in the modern age, unless you count a building here and there within a US base? What about a historical answer? Has it ever happened? Do you have to go as far back as the Revolutionary War?
Well, the bases the US “maintains” overseas aren’t the same as occupied enclaves. We lease the land they’re on from the host nation, and have to behave like guests.
Eventually the US economy may deteriorate until the Chinese navy sends gunboats to protect Walmart stores from looters, but until then I’m pretty sure no foreign nation has the same arangement on US soil.
However, any number of training facilities on US bases have students from other countries. When I was at the Defense Information School it was like the “Small World” at Disneyland, only with cammo patterns instead of parkas and dirndles. The Indonesians used to stink up the mess hall with clove cigarettes. One of the ships I was on trained young Jordanian navy officers (unlike the American officers, they could pick up girls in San Diego and bring them back to their staterooms, and the captain couldn’t do much about it).
During the Cold War, Luftwaffe pilots trained at Luke AFB in Arizona, named after a WWI pilot who had been killed by the Germans. Awkward, perhaps.
Do any countries besides the US maintain permanent military bases in other countries, excluding states where they are waging war (eg, British bases in Afghanistan) or joint forces like NATO?
Doesn’t the UK have such bases in Cyprus?
Well during the cold war the Soviets did of course.
The UK still has bases in some its former colonies (such as Belize where they do their jungle training).
A small Mexican army detachment encamped in San Antonio in 2005 (and maybe elsewhere in Texas too) to help out with Katrina evacuees. I believe it was the first time since the Mexican-American war that they visited Texas.
Frank Luke?
I remember shooting his ass down in “Red Baron”
Aren’t there UK bases in Germany?
Russia actually just got themselves a base in Krygstan (sp?) and I’m sure there are others they are looking to lease, or re-lease in some instances.
Foreign based bases are essential for the proper projection of power, and as such, I imgine we’ll be seeing more of them for both Russia and China, and soon enough India as all parties being to flex (or in Russia’s case, re-flex) their growing military power.
There is an ancedote about German pilots training on a new NATO fighter-plane in the US, crashing spectacularly, and as they walk away from their ejection seat muttering: “Make that EIGHT allied aircraft destroyed”.
France has a bunch of its soldiers on oversees deployment
The oddest place the British Army is deployed is probably Brunei.
British troops as well. IIRC, the ‘last’ British forces to leave after the war left New York in November 1783.
Dubi-quotes used because British forces remained in land that had been ceded to the US under the Treaty of Paris and didn’t leave until 1796 as agreed under the Jay Treaty.*
Mind, for these to count, one needs to squint a bit and have a rather loose definition of allowed.
*I think the Jay Treaty mentioned six forts. I’m guessing one of them was Detroit.
The German air force now conducts its training in New Mexico , Holloman Air Force base. About 800 personnel are pemanently based there. The weather is nicer than Europe and there is more room.
Similarly, they train for some anti-aircraft missiles at Fort Bliss, El Paso, TX, with a permanent installation on base. Good place to grab lunch, as I recall.