U.S. overseas base operations long predate the 1898 Spanish-American War.

Evidence

When most people think about the expansion of the United States beyond North America—and the bases that went with that expansion—they generally look to 1898’s Spanish-American War. Again, however, expansion beyond the continent and the roots of our base nation go back much farther. During 1798’s Quasi-War with France, for instance, a hundred years before the Spanish-American conflict, U.S. Navy frigates operated from ports on several Caribbean islands. The Barbary Wars of 1801–5 and 1815 likewise saw U.S. Marines capture and temporarily occupy the fortress and port of Derna (marking the first U.S. occupation of Middle Eastern lands). Through the mid-nineteenth century, the U.S. Navy used temporary bases to support military operations around the globe, in Taiwan, Uruguay, Japan, Holland, Mexico, Ecuador, China, Panama, and Korea. — David Vine, Base Nation_ How U.S. Military Bases…, 62

Categorization

Category: Factual Claims

• SHARE: The 1801 Derna occupation as the first U.S. occupation of Middle Eastern lands is a sharp detail for a military history buff.

Related

• US overseas bases predated the Spanish-American War by nearly a century (similarity 0.98)
• By 1900 the U.S. had an overseas base network rivaling European colonial powers (similarity 0.80)
• The U.S. holds more foreign bases than any empire in history (similarity 0.80)
• Imperial expansion across the Pacific was launched from Guantánamo Bay. (similarity 0.79)
• Bases expanded American power far beyond the small territory they occupy. (similarity 0.79)
• US frontier forts operated as foreign bases enabling westward conquest (similarity 0.79)
• The U.S. base network exceeds any prior empire’s footprint (similarity 0.78)