Costs and Contributions to Support the U.S. Military Presence Overseas Inquiry and Analyses

The United States spends over $10 billion a year to support our permanent military presence overseas. That does not include military personnel costs or spending to support the war in Afghanistan. Nearly 70 percent of that $10 billion is spent in Germany, the Republic of Korea, and Japan. The fact that such a high percentage of our overseas spending involves those three countries is not surprising. Germany is among our most important partners in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), an alliance President Obama has rightly called "indispensable to global security and prosperity." The Department of Defense (DOD) is currently conducting the largest transformation of military posture in the Pacific region since the end of World War II. Transforming posture in Korea, Japan, and Guam will affect tens of thousands of military personnel and their families and require the construction of hundreds of new facilities and more than 3,500 housing units. This book examines initiatives in Korea, their cost implications, and the basis for "tour normalization;" initiatives in Japan and Guam and their cost implications; and the extent to which DOD estimates the total cost of posture and addresses affordability issues.