This page provides an overview for the get_basedata() function, highlighting some of its potential uses.

First things first—let’s load the troopdata package

The troopdata package provides multiple functions to generate customizable datasets containing information on US military deployments and accompanying data. The get_basedata() function represents the core of this package, providing customized data on US overseas troop deployments, specifically.

Basic Use

Users can call on the get_builddata() returns a data frame containing geocoded location-project-year military construction data. The basic arguments function the same as compared to the previous functions. The primary difference is that the data are currently available only for all countries and years where the Department of Defense publicly discloses spending figures from 2008 through 2019. Note there are also many observations included that contain amounts, but do not disclose location names or other information.


hostlist <- c(200, 255, 211)

buildexample <- get_builddata(host = hostlist, startyear = 2008, endyear = 2019)
#> Warning: Be advised that the data include unspecified locations, as well as 0 or
#> negative spending values.
#> Warning: Spending values are in thousands of current US dollars.
#> Warning in if (is.na(host)) {: the condition has length > 1 and only the first
#> element will be used

head(buildexample)
#> # A tibble: 6 × 8
#>   countryname    ccode iso3c  year location                     lat    lon spend_construct…
#>   <chr>          <dbl> <chr> <dbl> <chr>                      <dbl>  <dbl>            <dbl>
#> 1 United Kingdom   200 GBR    2008 Royal Air Force Lakenheath  52.4  0.518             1800
#> 2 United Kingdom   200 GBR    2008 Royal Air Force Lakenheath  52.4  0.518            15500
#> 3 United Kingdom   200 GBR    2008 Menwith Hill Station        54.8 -2.70             10000
#> 4 United Kingdom   200 GBR    2008 Menwith Hill Station        54.8 -2.70             31000
#> 5 United Kingdom   200 GBR    2009 Royal Air Force Lakenheath  52.4  0.518            71828
#> 6 United Kingdom   200 GBR    2009 Royal Air Force Lakenheath  52.4  0.518             7400

As with the base data you can build cool maps using the construction data. You can also size the points according to the amount of spending associated with a particular location, adding some additional details to maps and other figures.


library(ggplot2)

map <- ggplot2::map_data("world")
basepoints <- troopdata::get_builddata(host = NA, startyear = 2009, endyear = 2019)


buildmap <- ggplot() +
  geom_polygon(data = map, aes(x = long, y = lat, group = group), fill = "gray80", color = "white", size = 0.1) +
  geom_point(data = basepoints, aes(x = lon, y = lat, size = spend_construction), color = "purple", alpha = 0.4) +
  coord_equal(ratio = 1.3) +
  theme_void() +
  theme(plot.title = element_text(face = "bold", size = 15)) +
  labs(title = "Locations of U.S. military construction spending, 2009-2019",
       size = "Spending Amount")


buildmap