Ronald R. Reagan Administration (1985-1988)

Note: Except where noted, troop deployments for each region are calculated as the mean of all years in a presidential administration.

In 1984, the U.S. renews diplomatic relations with Iraq, and as a result, eight American troops are stationed there for the first time since the 1967 Arab-Israeli War . On the other side of world, the U.S. increases troop deployments to its military bases in the Philippines every year during Reagan's presidency. The military hopes to establish a counterweight to the nearby Soviet naval base because it fears a communist-backed coup of the unpopular American-supported Marcos regime. There are more than 16,000 American troops present in the Philippines in 1986, when Marcos is peacefully voted out of office and sent into exile . Meanwhile, African, Middle Eastern and South Asian troop levels for the Reagan years peak at 20,000 in 1987 - the same year that the U.S. conducts air strikes against Libya, the North African nation suspected of terrorist attacks . Total worldwide troop deployments continue to rise during the second Reagan administration, reaching a post-Vietnam high of 2,174,217 troops in 1987.

A Note about the Data:
The Defense Department reports troop deployments at the end of each fiscal year on Sept. 30th. In the following maps, troop deployments are listed as the average, by region, for the four years of each presidential administration. The exceptions to this rule are the maps representing the Nixon and Ford administrations. Where a region's average does not adequately reflect the troop deployments over an entire administration (such as the average for East Asia and the Pacific during the Nixon administration), annual troop levels are listed instead. Whenever possible, the caption at the bottom of each map has tried to explain fluctuations in data that might skew the averages. Finally, when viewing these maps, it is important to keep in mind that the Defense Department regularly changes the names of it's geographical regions and the countries included in them. A color-coded system is used for national makeup of each region to help clarify this.