Google Gemini 2.5 Pro just estimated 200 military bases close to China (I used “close” in my prompt, not very precise, so that number is likely including bases in the general area.)

Gemini estimated 750 to 800 total military bases.

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vancroft 6 days ago | parent | next [-]

Al Jazeera reports around 750 US military bases, across the world but concentrated in Europe, Japan and South Korea, and the Middle East. Not quite bordering China. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/9/10/infographic-us-mili...

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infecto 6 days ago | parent [-]

This is not wrong but the term base is click baity but probably an accepted definition from the pentagon. It’s include all facilities no matter or large or small and even those that are part of another base but not on the main campus. It’s almost like a count of buildings.

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abtinf 6 days ago | parent [-]

I haven’t checked, but I would guess this number even includes things like NSA outposts (since NSA is part of DoD) and embassies (which are protected by Marines).

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infecto 6 days ago | parent | next [-]

While that may be true, if I understand correctly the typical “base” number is effectively down to a structure. So if you have a radar station in Japan that has a handful of employees and they report up to one of the larger complexes, that counts as a base. It is conflating imo with what people picture as a base.

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dgfitz 6 days ago | parent | prev [-]

Generally, intelligence officers/employees (such as people who work at NSA) deploy to bases, or FOBs. I'm sure there are a handful of "NSA outposts" but this isn't generally how it works.

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abtinf 6 days ago | parent [-]

I’m thinking of things like Room 641A. Is that regarded as a base?

	▲	dgfitz 5 days ago \| parent [-]
		No.

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infecto 6 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Hmmm let’s clear this up because the way you write is extremely click baity. I believe those higher numbers are less a military base and better thought of as a facility. They could be a small housing facility, radio station etc. it’s a valid number but I think base is probably not the right way to describe.

When you say China that is incredibly disingenuous. If we said Asia yeah sure and that is effectively Japan and Korea.

Now let’s think about it more in terms of major bases/complexes. We are looking at maybe 25 in and around Japan and 10 for Korea. Still not a small number but I think a very different mental picture than 900 bases mostly around China. Also worth nothing that’s probably around 80k people deployed in those two countries.

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dgfitz 6 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

So no, no sources.

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sjsdaiuasgdia 6 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Why would you think those are good sources for a question like this?

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mark_l_watson 6 days ago | parent [-]

maybe I am wrong to do this, but I run Gemini 2.5 Pro in ‘research mode’, ask a question I am interested in, wait usually about 2 to 4 minutes and Gemini summarizes a large number of sources for me.

I think there is a lot of bias everywhere, and I thought that this sort of averages some of the noise away.

I think grandparent comments about what constitutes a military base vs. a facility are interesting. I was a defense contractor from 1974 to 1998, and it seemed like all the US bases I visited were very large, but some of the NATO bases I visited were much smaller. Sorry to be anecdotal here, just explaining my own experiences.

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sjsdaiuasgdia 6 days ago | parent [-]

I've had too many lies told to me by all of these "AI" tools to trust anything I don't already know to be true without verifying the referenced sources myself. At that point, if I'm giving the information to anyone else, I might as well communicate the sources rather than an AI's impression of the sources. There's just no value add to me beyond identifying potential sources in "research mode".

	▲	mark_l_watson 6 days ago \| parent [-]
		OK, point taken. I will post a link in the future.

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rafram 6 days ago | parent | prev [-]

This is not useful.