The estimated eight hundred US bases in more than seventy countries around the world are a massive military presence unlike anything else seen today, yet rarely acknowledged in US political discourse.

The Marine Corps Air Station Futenma in Okinawa might occasionally grab a headline thanks to sustained and vigorous anti-base protests, and US military bases in Guam might briefly make news due to public opposition to “Valiant Shield” war exercises that have taken place on the US colony during the pandemic. But, overwhelmingly, foreign bases simply are not discussed.

They are immutable, unremarkable facts, rarely considered even during an election cycle that repeatedly invokes concepts like “democracy” and “endless war” and, thanks to a raging pandemic and climate crisis, raises existential questions about what “America” is and should be.