The inventory of more than 10,000 sites of the U.S. Department of Defense — remote dumps, barren test sites, abandoned infrastructures, and obsolete facilities— represent the haunting territorial shadows of militarism.
The US Department of Defense boasts an impressive 25 million-acre footprint of military facilities and installations around the world. However, it is the lesser-known inventory of more than 10,000 sites— remote dumps, barren test sites, abandoned infrastructures, and obsolete facilities— that represent the haunting territorial shadows of militarism.
Yet this extraordinary legacy is not only under-represented, it is systematically ignored in much American environmental history. Appearing as mere afterthoughts of military administration, or outsourced to the civilian world of remediation, this article traces the scales and significations of this spatial residuum in the military-logistical operations of the US Department of Defense.