Papua New Guinea

This graphic, via Visual Capitalist's Pallavia Rao, locates the known overseas bases of the American military, categorized by who controls the base.*

Graphics from a story in Zerohedge about U. S. Military Bases Worldwide. There is also a list of all the bases. I'm reading through the list (my copy here) and I notice that we now have six bases in New Guinea. Really? When did that happen? I know we were there fighting the Japanese during WW2, but after that? There are always stories in the news about U. S. Military Bases in some furrin country, but I don't recall hearing anything about any in New Guinea, so I ask our friend Google, who turned up a couple of stories. One was about WW2 and the other, widely reported, was from 2023, where the U. S. is granted six bases in Papua New Guinea (PNG). I guess it didn't cause much of a stir, or if it did the stinkers were suppressed.

All this got my attention because I just finished reading Lucky 666. a story about an aerial reconnaissance crew flying a B-17 out of New Guinea during WW2.

* Methinks the map is trying to convey too much information. Europe, for instance, has a bunch of military bases. Each military base is individually marked, but if you zoom in far enough to be able to distinguish one from you can only get a vague idea of their location because the borders have been pixelated.