American military bases encircle the globe; from Italy to the Indian Ocean, from Japan to Honduras. The far-reaching story of the perils of the U. S. military bases and what these bases say about America today.

More than two decades after the end of the Cold War, the U.S. still stations its troops at nearly a thousand locations in foreign lands. These bases are usually taken for granted or overlooked entirely, a little-noticed part of the Pentagon's vast operations. Vine shows that the worldwide network of bases brings with it a panoply of ills-- and actually makes the nation less safe in the long run-- in this far-reaching examination of the perils of American military bases overseas.