Author: Noah Reed
From 1955 to 1979, the United States stationed thousands of military personnel and even deployed several nuclear weapons to Taiwan under the U.S.–ROC Mutual Defense Treaty. These forces were organized under the United States Taiwan Defense Command (USTDC), which operated as part of the U.S. Pacific Command (USPACOM), now known as USINDOPACOM. The USTDC was disbanded in 1979, following the recognition of the PRC.
Our visualization illustrates the distribution of USTDC combat and administrative units in 1973, shortly before the removal of nuclear weapons and drawdown of personnel. The visualization is based on declassified Cold War–era documents.