Official base cost tallies exclude billions in classified overseas programs

Evidence

Not surprisingly, the Pentagon tally omits the cost of secret bases and classified programs overseas. In 2012, the Pentagon’s classified budget was estimated at 51 billion. Applying the OCS methodology, I focused on the operations and maintenance spending portion of that total, which was estimated at 15.8 billion. As elsewhere, I conservatively estimate the overseas portion of that spending at 15 percent (the percentage of base sites overseas), adding $2.4 billion to the cost of bases abroad. Since classified spending is more likely to take place overseas than domestically, this is almost surely an underestimate. — David Vine, Base Nation_ How U.S. Military Bases…, 639

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Official overseas base cost figures omit over a billion dollars in construction — David Vine, Base Nation_ How U.S. Military Bases…, 623