Move over, Donald Trump and Ted Turner. The Department of Defense is the world’s top property owner with holdings around the world – a fact relevant amid election-year debate about the size and role of our military.Source
In the United States alone, DOD occupies 1.9 billion square feet of office space – about three times the floor space of all the nation’s Walmart stores, or 10 times the office space in all of Los Angeles. Worldwide, DOD has more than 2 million people working on 5,000 sites in 41 countries.
(Walmart, the nation’s largest private employer, has 1.4 million workers.)
Today’s video has more on the world’s biggest landlord. Take a look, share it with a friend in uniform, then consider the size and scope of today’s military in our discussion thread below.
How do we know? Check the original sources behind the fact:
US Department of Defense: "Base Structure Report Fiscal Year 2012 Baseline"
US Department of Defense: "About the Department of Defense (DOD)"
Cushman & Wakefield: "Marketbeat Office Snapshot"
When 'Beavis' and 'Butthead' debate, never do they talk about this gigantic sucking sound that is using up much needed wealth, money that could be used here at home to repair this faling apart nation.
No, the only talk is how to give even more money to this piggie outfit.
Just how many bases does the Pentagon have?
There are more than 1,000 U.S. military bases dotting the globe. To be specific, the most accurate count is 1,077. Unless it’s 1,088. Or, if you count differently, 1,169. Or even 1,180. Actually, the number might even be higher. Nobody knows for sure.
Today, according to the Pentagon’s published figures, the American flag flies over 750 U.S. military sites in foreign nations and U.S. territories abroad. This figure does not include small foreign sites of less 10 acres or those that the U.S. military values at less than $10 million. In some cases, numerous bases of this type may be folded together and counted as a single military installation in a given country. A request for further clarification from the Department of Defense went unanswered.
What we do know is that, on the foreign outposts the U.S. military counts, it controls close to 52,000 buildings, and more than 38,000 pieces of heavy infrastructure like piers, wharves, and gigantic storage tanks, not to mention more than 9,100 “linear structures” like runways, rail lines, and pipelines. Add in more than 6,300 buildings, 3,500 pieces of infrastructure, and 928 linear structures in U.S. territories and you have an impressive total. And yet, it isn’t close to the full story.