Despite all of the conflict and tension around the world - US deployments overseas are at the lowest level in modern American history:
Bottom Line: President Trump laid out the new Afghanistan strategy earlier this week. It's evident that additional troops will be deployed to the region as part of the effort to finish the tasks we started in the country after 9-11. Despite the ongoing and prolonged conflicts in the middle-east, we currently have the fewest soldiers deployed outside of the US in modern American history.
The Defense Manpower Data Center began providing real-time troop deployment information in the 1950's. Since the 1950's we've averaged right around 500,000 troops deployed at any given time. The high point came during the Vietnam war when more than 1.2 million US soldiers were deployed around the world. And the low point is happening right now (at least prior to any additional soldiers being sent into Afghanistan).
Currently just over 190,000 soldiers are deployed outside of the US. It's the first time under this system of record keeping that we've had fewer than 200,000 troops deployed. In terms of where our troops happen to be...
US troops are deployed in more than 20 countries and most aren't related to the current post 9-11 conflicts. Our presence to stabilize many WWII adversaries are still the most common destinations for our military. Here are the current top destinations:
#1: Japan - 38,800
#2: Germany - 34,600
#3: South Korea - 24,100
#4: Italy - 12,000
#5: Afghanistan: 9,000
So, as you see, three of the top five destinations are actually rooted in our sustained post-WWII presence in axis countries and even with increased troop deployments into Afghanistan, it'll still only represent the 4th highest level of deployment world-wide.