The United States is the only country in the world that divides the globe into regions and assigns a general or admiral as overall commander. This scheme, called the Unified Command Plan (UCP) Areas of Responsibility, consists of five geographic areas that encompasses every nation except Russia, Canada, and Mexico. (There is another subdivision called Areas of Interest which overlap; for example, the European Command, Joint Forces Command, and Pacific Command all include Russia in their areas of interest.)

Because forward presence, particularly in Europe, was considered essential during the Cold War to contain Soviet expansion and defend our allies, the additional costs were considered justified. Although U.S. overseas strength is much reduced today, the general distribution of forces remains much the same as during the Cold War. This raises two fundamental questions: whose expansion are we now containing and which allies are we now defending against attack by what enemies? What now justifies the huge costs of maintaining the forward presence of American’s military?

The table below lists the distribution of military, DoD civilians, and all dependents residing in the UCP areas as of September 30, 1999. The Pentagon does not publish a consolidated estimate of the costs of permanently stationing or routinely deploying Americans to these areas, but a 1994 estimate by the Congress’ watchdog, the General Accounting Office, placed the incremental annual cost (the difference between have those forces stationed abroad rather than in the U.S.) at $5 billion for Europe and another $5 billion for the Far East. In Fiscal Year 2000 dollars, this would be a combined figure of $11.2 billion

UCP Region	Military	Civilian Hire	Dependents
U.S. European Command (USEUCOM)*	114,713	47,259	137,258
U.S. Pacific Command (USPACOM)	98,824	38,447	56,353
U.S. Central Command (USCENTCOM)	29,090	1,090	921
U.S. Southern Command (USSOUTHCOM)**	2,051	1,936	2,394
U.S. Joint Forces Command (USJFCOM)	6,635	1,015	1,690
Unassigned Countries***	271	63	323
TOTAL	251,584	89,810	198,939

*Includes forces (3,630) afloat in Europe plus forces in Israel, Lebanon, and Syria; all European countries except Greenland and Iceland; all former Soviet Union except Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan; all North Africa except Egypt; all Sub-Saharan Africa except Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia, and Sudan.

**Includes civilians connected with the Panama Canal which was returned to Panama effective December 31, 1999.

***Russia, Canada, Mexico

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