You know, despite all of the conflict and tension around the world, overseas deployments are at the lowest level in modern American history.
President Trump laid out the new Afghanistan strategy earlier this week. You can watch his full address to the nation, below.
It's evident that additional troops will be deployed in an effort to finish the tasks we started in the country after 9/11. But despite the ongoing conflicts in the middle-east, we currently have the fewest number of soldiers deployed outside of the U.S. in modern American history.
The Defense Manpower Data Center began providing real-time troop deployment information in the 1950's. Since the 1950's we've averaged right around 500,000 troops deployed.
- The high point came during the Vietnam war: 1.2 million+ soldiers abroad
- The low point is now (prior to additional soldiers being sent into Afghanistan)
Currently just over 190,000 soldiers are deployed abroad.
It's the first time that we've had fewer than 200,000 troops deployed -- in terms of where in the world those troops currently are.
We have soldiers stationed in more than 20 countries, and most aren't related to the current, post-9/11 conflicts. Our presence to stabilize many WWII adversaries are still the most common destinations for our military. The top five include:
- Japan - 38,800
- Germany - 34,600
- South Korea - 24,100
- Italy - 12,000
- Afghanistan: 9,000
Three of the top are actually rooted in our sustained post-WWII axis countries. Even with increased troop deployments into Afghanistan, it'll still only represent the 4th highest level of deployment world-wide.
Deployment is at a historical low, yes. Though, no matter the statistics, we continue to support and salute our troops.