By Micah Zenko and Emma Welch, ForeignPolicy.com, May 29, 2012

[....] Many drones are based at long-established airfields in host countries that are quietly expanded and modernized by American engineers.

The countries that are willing to host U.S. drone operations have shifted as their political sensitivities have evolved. While the United States lost access to both Iraq and Pakistan in 2011, other host nations are more tolerant, albeit more evasive. For instance, a remote CIA airstrip in the Persian Gulf was reportedly completed in September, although the country remains publicly unidentified.

Given the politically sensitive nature of stationing U.S. government personnel or private contractors to support drone operations in another country's sovereign territory, it is impossible to identify and verify the complete architecture of air bases from which U.S. strike and spy drones fly. Many journalists and researchers have previously written about American drone bases, from which this piece benefitted tremendously. The 12 bases that appear below, scattered across three continents, are but a representative sample of drone bases around the world compiled through publicly available information. There are assuredly others, perhaps at [....]