service members were intent on cutting loose for a respite from their national security mission patrolling one of the world's busiest and most volatile shipping lanes.

national security: one of the Pentagon's hundreds of footholds all over the planet. .

For decades, the U.S. has enjoyed global military dominance, an achievement that has underpinned its influence, national security and efforts at promoting democracy.

The Department of Defense spends more than $700 billion a year on weaponry and combat preparedness – more than the next 10 countries combined, according to economic think tank the Peter G.

military personnel are spread across Africa, according to the Department of Defense.

Yet today, amid a sea change in security threats, America's military might overseas may be less relevant than it once was, say some security analysts, defense officials and former and active U.S.

"It was designed for a world that still faced another military hegemon," Parsi said. "Now, pandemics, climate chaos, artificial intelligence and 5G are far more important for American national security than having 15 bases in the Indian Ocean.".

Meanwhile, American white supremacists, not foreign terrorists, present the gravest terrorism threat to the U.S., according to a report from the Department of Homeland Security issued in October – three months before a violent mob stormed the Capitol. .

Delivering his first major foreign policy speech as commander-in-chief, President Joe Biden said earlier this month that he instructed Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin to lead a "Global Posture Review of our forces so that our military footprint is appropriately aligned with our foreign policy and national security priorities.".

Today there are up to 800, according to data from the Pentagon and an outside expert, David Vine, an anthropology professor at American University in Washington.

military and civilian personnel serve in more than 150 countries, the Defense Department says. .

(Camp Lemonnier, the largest U.S. base in Africa, is just miles away.) Britain, France and Russia have up to 60 overseas bases combined, according to Vine. At sea, the U.S. has 11 aircraft carriers.

The exact number of American bases is difficult to determine due to secrecy, bureaucracy and mixed definitions.

overseas bases indispensable to U.S.

Eisenhower warned in his farewell address of a growing military-industrial complex, the Pentagon was spending about 11% of GDP, or $300 billion, on the military, according to the Defense Department and a manual calculation by USA TODAY.

military has been operating under a national security strategy that is remarkably unchanged since World War II and thus is ill-suited to newer, more dynamic threats.

David Barno and political scientist Nora Bensahel recently suggested the Defense Department should prepare for smaller budgets as money is shifted to other priorities. .

"The pandemic has suddenly and vividly demonstrated that a large, forward deployed military cannot effectively protect Americans from non-traditional threats to their personal security and the American way of life," they wrote on the foreign policy website War on the Rocks.

"In a deeply interconnected world, geography matters far less, and the security afforded by America's far-flung military forces has been entirely irrelevant in this disastrous crisis."  .

national security priorities may be out of sync with the times: Since 9/11, wars and various American anti-terrorism raids and military activity around the world have taken the lives of more than 7,000 U.S.

takes a wide view of national security that encompasses conflict and terrorism as well as pandemics, climate change and cybersecurity and overseas bases and troops have a role to play.

In 2017, the Trump administration dropped the Obama administration's designation of climate change as a national security threat.

allies and dozens of security think tanks and research institutes say climate poses a potentially "catastrophic" threat to national and global security.

military is not a "Swiss Army knife" that can address every single threat. "It's a bit of a 'straw man'" argument to criticize it for threats it was not designed to meet, said the former national security adviser to members of the Senate Armed Services and Foreign Relations committees.

"Just because the American military can't solve every problem, that doesn't mean that it isn't useful for some problems," he said. .

Former Defense Secretary Robert Gates said that while challenges such as climate change and pandemics "have arisen, the other ones have not abated." He said Russia is working on "highly sophisticated weapons and has completely reformed its military and for the first time since the end of the Cold War is operating submarines off of our East Coast.

China's official defense budget for 2020 was $178 billion, and Beijing has shown far less interest in matching the Pentagon's military arsenal and more concern about moving from an imitator to an innovator in biotechnologies, finance, advanced computing, robotics, artificial intelligence, aerospace, cybersecurity and other high-tech areas.

is relying on traditional military bases, global military reach and training local militaries, while China is forging ahead by cutting economic deals that appear to be buying them more influence than the U.S.'s military approach.".

A bipartisan Senate investigation also found that Russia engaged in a sophisticated campaign to sow division ahead of the 2016 election, which included hackers affiliated with Russian military intelligence infiltrating Democratic National Committee emails and spreading false information on social media about Hillary Clinton.

The Defense Department conceded that it needs to adapt to a changing threat landscape and has strengthened U.S.

Cyber Command and the National Security Agency, units actively waging covert programs to try to stop Chinese, Iranian and Russian hackers.

It could be that physical American military infrastructure abroad is relevant in this regard.

government, public networks and private companies were targeted in cyberattacks 135 times by Chinese, Russian and other state actors, according to the Council on Foreign Relations. .

military spending and overseas bases are a legacy of post-World War II leaders who decided to "never again allow the U.S.

troops around the world, whether in Iraq or Italy (home to more than 14,000 American military personnel), there is a "tripwire effect" that demonstrates American resolve to defend allies and, chiefly, itself.  .

Many policymakers and military officials agree that the large overseas military presence is about deterrence.

For some, the benefits of a large foreign military presence easily outweigh the costs. .

"To me, a national security threat is an existential threat to the homeland.

presence in Iraq exacerbated the threat to the homeland," said an American official who was a civilian contractor for Iraq's transitional government after the U.S.-led invasion in 2003. This person did not want to be named because of his current government job.

in 2020, a figure that casts some doubt on the appropriateness of maintaining hundreds of military bases and tens of thousands of troops abroad in the face of a growing national security threat at home. .

The Defense Department referred USA TODAY's questions on national security to the White House.

A national security official in the Biden administration said the White House had nothing new to share about overseas troop posture.

needs an overseas presence, but it should be "episodic," not permanent, Milley said in December.

bases overseas might be necessary for rotational forces to go into and out of, but permanently positioning U.S.

Indeed, Biden may be inclined to reverse some of Trump’s military redeployment decisions, based on his own vision of American security shaped by four decades in Washington

And while it's not yet clear how many bases, if any, were shuttered under Trump, since 2016 he opened additional bases in Afghanistan, Estonia, Cyprus, Germany, Hungary, Iceland, Israel, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Niger, Norway, Palau, the Philippines, Poland, Romania, Saudi Arabia, Slovakia, Somalia, Syria and Tunisia, according to data from the Pentagon and Vine

Space Force, established by Trump in December 2019, already has a squadron of 20 airmen stationed at Qatar’s Al-Udeid Air Base, as well as overseas facilities for missile surveillance in Greenland, the United Kingdom, Ascension Island in the Pacific Ocean and in the Diego Garcia militarized atoll in the Indian Ocean, according to Stars and Stripes magazine, a U.S

military activity from 2018 to 2020 shows there has not been a corresponding drawdown of counterterrorism resources and operations to meet that goal, according to research by Stephanie Savell, a defense and security researcher for the Costs of War project at Brown University's Watson Institute

military does not have troops or bases, it uses proxies and drones to surveil and sometimes remotely launch missiles against suspected terrorists. 

activity ranges from combat in Kenya to war games in Tajikistan and raises fresh questions about the meaning of ending "endless wars" if America's military is routinely engaged in foreign military theaters. 

national security explanation was that it was dangerous for the Pentagon to rely on energy from Russia, but Pennsylvania lawmakers also saw an opportunity to subsidize a dying industry, according to a federal watchdog

"Put it this way," Grazier said: "How crazy do you think people in the U.S. would get if the Russians suddenly opened military bases in Canada

Air Force officer and now architecture professor at the University of Oregon, said large overseas bases amount to "mini-Americas": expansive, car-friendly, costly to run, and often plagued by negative environmental, social and geopolitical consequences

military personnel as they enjoyed some down time on "American Alley."