Is our presence around the world encouraging / creating terrorism?

Good question COL Lee Flemming and I think the answer is yes and no. Isolationism is a concept that just won't work, but mission creep and over extension have 2nd and 3rd order effects. Our fundamental issue is defining what the threat is, and who the threat is. We have had a hard time with this for years. But, I do not believe bringing everyone home would ensure our safety, unless we decide to run our world regulating economy only in the USA.

Arab and Persian nations in the Middle East have a long list of grievances against the West. Specifically against the British and French empires, that began dividing the land and exploiting the regions resources. Hostility to those Empires caused them to embrace the Axis powers and their treatment after WW2 ended only made matters worse. As the Western powers eventually pulled back they left brutal dictatorships in their wake to continue looking out for the interests of Western powers. When the people did manage to democratically elect leaders that served their interests, those leaders were overthrown and replaced with leasers that served Western interests.

While asymmetric warfare is as old as conflict itself, the reestablishment of the state of Israel may be one of the first examples of terrorism being used to successfully establish a nation. Islamic extremists learned exactly how effective terror could be when the Jewish Irgun And Lehi Gangs helped drive Britain and the UN to establish the State of Israel. Every attempt by the people of the region to engage modern Western powers through symmetric warfare has been a complete failure for the past several hundred years. Conversely, with the help of the US... asymmetric warfare against the USSR did enable the Taliban to ultimately defeat our common adversary. Not long after that we kicked Saddam out of Kuwait and made certain that he wouldn't have the military might to ever take Saudi Arabia.

I'm not sure why we chose to stay in Saudi Arabia after we kicked Iraq out of Kuwait, I'm guessing it had something to do with oil. Our continued occupation of the region changed how Islamic Extremists perceived the US and now we were targets along with traditional Western powers like the UK even though we had been arming and training them to fight the USSR not so long ago. The real question that remains though, is why exactly are we still there? We no longer need their oil, we are no longer concerned with keeping communism in check, and we can best keep Islamic extremist attacks against the West in check by paying attention to whats happening in the region and attacking anyone who constitutes a real threat to us from a distance. There is no reason for us to have any boots on the ground at all.

With no US boots on the ground, and no US support for the regional dictatorships, it's likely that that attacks against the US would drop as well.

I believe the data set you are using to make your point is not making a very good argument. Lets take this back to my era. The glorious 80s. In El Salvador, Roman Catholic nuns were murdered by Salvadoran military authorities. People called for the closure of the School of the Americas since those military members were all graduates. There was a huge amount of support for this. Out of the tens of thousands of graduates from all over Latin American, a handful of bad apples were produced. Nobody saw that the school taught people in Latin America our values, our laws, our ethics. They didn't see partnerships built between nations, governments, & members of multiple militaries. Other slaughters, issues, & even wars were most likely averted by such a school. In any given operation, especially in the asymmetrical world, there is difficulty in parties understanding what is going on. Kassim's uncle Ahmed leave for "work" every morning with an AK over his shoulder. He doesn't wear a uniform. Kassim loves his favorite uncle. Ahmed doesn't come home one day & the family says the American killed him. The family may or many not tell little Kassim the details. Ahmed could have been a fighter for the Islamic State. To him, the Americans took away his favorite uncle & yes, he could be turn out to be a terrorist some day. On the other hand, Kassim's uncle Ahmed may come home & tell of stories fighting the Daesh & say he was about to die when an American soldier saved him. It's all on circumstance, not a matter of troop levels.

I personally think that the United States (various agencies of it) has been "making a bed" for many decades that we are now finding out "we have to sleep in, too." It is a subject far too volatile for this site.

tit for Tat, just like ARMY bases and strip bars.

Yup they will just stop if we pull out uh huh

Long wars are the deaths of republics. They necessitate slides into imperialism. Only one semi-republican empire had a soft landing from empire and we would do well to study every little piece of that we can and see what we can do to emulate it. And yet. Maybe empire isn't such a bad thing? It seems the natural condition of of creatures to be constantly at war, and we thinking creatures to do so in an organized manner at scale. Peace is an aberration in our long history and geographically and temporally constrained very tightly.

Maybe just enough empire to keep us all alive: 1.) prevent use of nukes 2.) prevent using persistent bio-weapons 3.) compelling aligned responses to natural existential threats and 4.) provide some hefty guidance on existential manmade threats like Strong AI and climate change?

Certainly a lighter touch on this "terrorism" hullaballo.