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Battle over Bases
In 2003 and 2004, President George W. Bush announced his intention to initiate a major realignment and shrinkage of what his administration described as an economically wasteful and outdated U.S. overseas basing structure. The plan was to close more than a third of the nation's Cold War-era bases in Europe, South Korea, and Japan. Troops were to be shifted east and south, to be closer to current and predicted conflict zones from the Andes to North Africa, the Middle East, and Southeast Asia. Over a planned six to eight years, as many as 70,000 U.S. troops and 100,000 family members and civilians would return to bases in the United States.
In place of big Cold War bases, the Pentagon would focus on creating smaller and more flexible "forward operating bases" and even more austere "lily pad" bases across the so-called "arc of instability." Guam and Diego Garcia were readied for major expansions, building on pre-9/11 plans.
The plan quickly faced resistance and criticism, most prominently from the Congressional Budget Office and a congressional commission on overseas bases, both of which questioned the costs associated with closing bases and moving troops. Since that time little of the original plan has been implemented. In Germany, the military still maintains 268 installations, including massive bases at Ramstein and Spangdahlem; the planned removal of two army brigades is now in doubt after the commander of the army's forces in Europe recently called for them to stay in Germany. In Japan, the planned move of 8,000 Marines from Okinawa to Guam may be delayed beyond a 2014 target date. The only notable shift has been in South Korea, where U.S. troops left the demilitarized zone and moved from Seoul to expanded bases south of the capital, aided by the South Korean government's violent seizure of land from villagers in Daechuri.
Rather than shrinking since the announced reorganization, the overseas base network has for the most part expanded in scope and size, as a result of the Bush administration's wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and its broader efforts to assert U.S. geopolitical dominance in the Middle East, Central Asia, and globally. Since the invasions of 2001 and 2003, the United States has created or expanded bases in Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Georgia, Qatar, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, Oman, and Kuwait. In Iraq and Afghanistan, there may be upwards of 100 and 80 installations, respectively, with plans to expand the basing infrastructure in Afghanistan as part of a troop surge.
In Eastern and Central Europe, installations have been created or are in development in Bulgaria, Poland, Romania, and the Czech Republic, and are contributing to rising tensions with Russia. In Africa, as part of the development of the new African Command, the Pentagon has created or investigated the creation of installations in Algeria, Djibouti, Gabon, Ghana, Kenya, Mali, Nigeria, São Tomé and Príncipe, Senegal, and Uganda. In the Western Hemisphere, the United States maintains a sizable collection of bases throughout South America and the Caribbean, with the Pentagon exploring the creation of new bases in Colombia and Peru in response to its pending eviction from Manta, Ecuador.
In total, the Pentagon claims it has 865 base sites outside the 50 states and Washington, DC. Notoriously unreliable, this tally omits bases in Iraq and Afghanistan, among other well-known and secret bases. A better estimate is 1,000. While ultimately the motivation behind the Bush reorganization plan was the neoconservative dream of endless U.S. global domination, the previous administration was right to criticize the basing network as outdated, bloated, and profligate. In the midst of an economic crisis, there has never been a more critical time to dramatically shrink the U.S. web of overseas bases.
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31 Comments so far
Show AllWe must seize the moment to push a government that might actually listen to us. Or we could just say what a war-monger Obama is for not closing all those bases.
mad 10:38 ------Exactimento! And stop slaugtering Pushtuns in their own country!
The world is shrinking fast and globalization is probably inevitable. It is time for countries to get together to end war, poverty, exploitation, disease, overpopulation, resource depletion, pollution, extinction, and other problems we could solve together if only greed, superstition, ignorance, hate, racism, militarism, religion, in short, if conservatives didn't stand in the way.
I would suggest to you that the fiction of Globalization is shattered and as a fact, countries are securing National interests first. Nationalism is most decidedly back.
Conservatives don't believe in sticking their noses in other people's business. The flagrant militarism belongs to the fascists - as it always has - and NOT conservatives. Get your labels straight, please.
Sorry, army brat, the labels are 'correctamundo' as stated, especially about other countries, people who believe differently, etc...
Just think a moment about conservative views on who can vote, or make policy, or be elected, or be married.
You sound bright - think about it!
>>The plan quickly faced resistance and criticism, most prominently from the Congressional Budget Office and a congressional commission on overseas bases, both of which questioned the costs associated with closing bases and moving troops.
Ok let me get this straight. The reason they can not close overseas bases is because it will cost too much money?
The one trillion dollar a year Military can not AFFORD to spend less money because it will cost more money?
Talk about the proverbial Albatross around the neck. This just says how insane Militarism and the MIC is.
Sounds like the Orwellian WAR IS PEACE!
GwNorth
Nobody can say my country is being led by anything but idiots, then or apparently now. What can I say.
We should close at a minimum 25% of these bases straight away. Another 20-40% within 2 years. There is a debate within the military itself about how many bases are really needed, but even the most aggresive feels about 1/2 can be closed.
You know where the resistence is really coming from.
"but even the most aggresive feels about 1/2 can be closed."
God I hope they make it for real. I'd hate to see any more of our young sons and daughters be dragged to death or ruins just for those bloody bases.
I feel we could lose 75-80% of them and be the better for it.
Of course America cannot afford to remove its bases from Japan. They would actually have to stop ripping off Japanese tax payers…
Back in 2000 Japan was paying about $2.5 billion to support the American military and although the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) has been under constant pressure from constituents to reduce the burden it has in fact got worse. However U.S. Forces are dispersed among 91 facilities located on Honshu, Kyushu, and Okinawa. Total acreage of U.S. bases is approximately 78,000 acres. according to the US government information, the annual cost of stationing U.S. Forces in Japan by 1995 had reached approximately $7.6B. and of this amount, the Government of Japan paid $4.25B of the cost. Those payments, in the latest agreement, based on a 2006 road map for reorganizing the U.S. forces in Japan, states that the two sides will advance the transfer to ease Okinawa's burden in hosting bases. Clinton last month signed a document stating that Japan will pay for $6.09 billion of the $10.27 billion price tag for the U.S. forces realignment. Developing new facilities and infrastructure on Guam alone will cost Japan $2.8 billion. The agreement requires that Washington limit its use of Japan's money to relocation projects and return any that goes unused. The realignment will move about 8,000 out of the 50,000-strong U.S. Marine Corps contingent in Okinawa and their dependents, who numbered around 9,000 in 2006, by 2014.
Quoting from : The Asia Pacific Journal,
http://www.japanfocus.org
Japan as “Reverse-Mercenary” State
“Japan would pay dearly for its submission. Apart from the $6 billion cost for the construction of US military facilities in Guam (“relocation costs”) – for which surely there is no precedent elsewhere – it is estimated that the Henoko base construction will cost around one trillion yen (some $11 billion), and the missile defense system to which Japan had committed itself and which its Ministry of Defense estimates will cost between $7.4 and $8.9 billion through 2012, and undoubtedly Clnton’s February mission would put pressure on Japan (likewise Korea and Indonesia) to step up purchases of other military hardware. In addition, Japan would be expected at very least not to attempt any reduction in the military tax it has been paying the US government for the past 30 years, known in Japan as “Omoiyari” (Consideration or Sympathy) and in the US as “Host Nation Support” (roughly 200 billion yen, currently $2.2 billion per year).”
So you see the Japanese, particularly do not want most of these bases, but certainly they do not want to be having to pay for the privilege of getting rid of the burden. The Status of Forces Agreement SOFA is a key stone of relations between Japan and the US, but may come in for some serious realignment once Prime Minister Aso’s LDP looses the next election and power after a run of more than 50 years, which is looking likely.
I'd suggest that the price tag is very moderate if you consider how much the Japanese would have to pay to protect themselves.
Personally I'd be very happy to close all our bases in Japan and just retain Guam.
Perhaps Japan wouldn't be such a target if it didn't have the bases in the first place, did you ever think about that?
The American bases there have really very little to do with the defence of Japan which it does handled itself quite effectively if expensively at about 2% of GDP by the Japan Self Defence Forces JSDF, under a constitution of which article 9 precludes their use overseas. (something regrettably the US is trying to get them to change) America's forces in Japan has far more to do with full spectrum projection of US power. As I see it, every other sucker in this world has to be ripped of by, or pay for, the US Empire, and most of us don't have any need for it. In fact, come to think of it, the Americans themselves don't need it, as it principally benefits the only MIC, a few major corporations, some now headquartered in Dubai and a meagre elite of about 2% of US society, while the rest are kept in permanent debt and tax slavery, or are gun fodder for the endless wars, in any case they are deluded into believing they have any democracy or freedom, whereas in fact the are really sheeple regularly sacrificed and served up to the interests of a few noble families.
"Perhaps Japan wouldn't be such a target if it didn't have the bases in the first place, did you ever think about that?"
Certainly, but I doubt it has much to do with it.
It really comes down to your belief that the world has changed and there are no countries out there that will be agressive, that truly want an "empire," have an ideology or religion they want to enforce on others or their population forces agressive moves.
I simply believe that the world is pretty much the same and I see no evidence of any such progress. In fact considering the devestation in some countries, real genocide (not the rhetorical kind) and killings I'd say there has been no change as you suggest.
JSDF couldn't stop the California National Guard.
You want to see some sheeple that have no freedom. no democracy and are nothing but gun fodder? Visit some African countries. Try what used to be Burma. The list is long. Blaming America is easy, but its usually off the mark.
retain Guam?
Sir, have you ever visited Guam? This tiny island can not support more military build up than we already have. No matter how much money, no matter where it comes from this build up could wipe out the indigenous population. Guam has always supported the U.S. military. Many of the activists against the build up are veterans. It isn't a matter of economics or politics. It is a matter of natural resources and an already dying culture. And more and more the people of Guam are feeling that for the others our resources and culture are not worth saving.
The Pentagon is a cancer which has metastasized too deeply into the body politic ever to be excised. Too bad, too late.
The modern national security state was erected in 1947. If it took us 60+ years to get here, it may take another 60 to return to a semblance of sanity. Don't give up!
patgarrett
An overseas base a violation of another countries sovereignty? When that base is there by agreement and in many cases the country raises hell if you talk about closing their base. Don't see the reasoning.
Are we talking about the same thing? We are not asking Mexico to put a base in Texas. Most of the bases you are speaking of are there by agreement of and most by request of the countries involved. You seem to give the impression that you think these bases were forced on these countries. None were forced in your meaning, though there are some that were not invited. Cuba for example.
It seems to me you refuse to see any other reasoning but that of a dead ideology by stating that all our overseas bases should be closed.
I'm not too worried about Mexico taking back the Alamo. But there is plenty to worry about on the border.
"texas-centric"
Interesting.
General Franco helped the Nazis.....The Brits, French, and Soviet Union wanted to invade Spain and get rid of Franco.......The Americans saw an opportunity to extort from Franco the agreement to put bases at: Zaragoza, Madrid, Seville, and Rota....
When opportunity comes to expand the military, that opportunity must be seized upon. "Desert Storm" of 1991, "Ok, tell Hussein we will do nothing if he goes into Kuwait."....He does it and the U.S. gets to set up military bases in Kuwait and Saudi Arabia.......
Close 50% of the bases today and let the mlitary help rebuild America.
The overseas base closing issue reminds me a bit of the status of forces agreement eventually patched together between the lame duck Bush regime and the Maliki government in occupied Iraq. It provides a strange opportunity for President Obama to move military policy in a generally progressive policy direction (down scaling Pentagon overstretch and withdrawing from imperial pipe dreams), while (somewhat disingenuously) claiming that the Dems are only carrying out decisions that were previously made by George W. Bush.
The GAO's reasoning is probably correct in terms of overall cost/benefit analysis. What really gets accomplished (economically) when you shut down a large, aging shopping center in the city center, only to disperse most of the employees into a half dozen brand new convenience stores constructed out nearer the suburbs? The saving achieved by shutting down the depreciated asset is more than offset by the start up and dislocation costs of the new arrangement.
The real question of course is why do we want to proliferate new military installations into previously non-militarized regions of the globe anyway? Regardless of whether we call them bases, forward operating bases, lilly pads, or daffodils it's still militarism chasing after the neo-con wet dream of full spectrum dominance, regardless of the price tag that somebody, some day, will have to pony up to pay.
Bill from Saginaw
Bill
"The real question of course is why do we want to proliferate new military installations into previously non-militarized regions of the globe anyway?"
Thats the easiest question in the world to answer. NO.
We have the strategic bases that are absolutely required to protect our trade and deter any moves against our country on the ground already. We need no new bases. I wish a lot more countruies would follow the Phillipinos lead. It put thousands out of work and they still haven't recovered from the closing, but it benefitted us tremendously. That was one of the many bases we no longer need.
To the gentleman that suggested we close 50% of our bases I would have said why not 65% and keep a downward trend at every opportunity.
Thomas More
"We have the strategic bases that are absolutely required to protect our trade and deter any moves against our country"
Sorry but that is bull.
How is it that Denmark, or Chile, or even China manage to trade all round the world and protect their country, without having a force equal in money terms to the rest of the world's military expenditure combined, spread in hundreds of installations around the world.
Sorry, but that is military hegemony.
And by the way the US was not invited to leave the Philippines, it was finally kicked out.
And also you were not invited into Japan you invaded and occupied that country after committing war crimes against the civilian populations of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, in testing your atom bombs.
I suppose in your special mind you are now welcomed in Iraq and Afghanistan too. Just ask them!
Lucitanian
Talk about Bull.
"How is it that Denmark, or Chile, or even China manage to trade all round the world and protect their country, without having a force equal in money terms to the rest of the world's military expenditure combined, spread in hundreds of installations around the world."
Because we have been doing it for the last 49 years just as the Brits did before us. Do you really believe that if we'd just give up our military and withdraw it from the world, the world would become some Utopian campfire group? Do you really believe it was "NATO" that dampened down those Somali pirates?
Would you prefer a Chinese military hegemony?
"And by the way the US was not invited to leave the Philippines, it was finally kicked out."
And where did the Phillipinos get their country in the first place? From us whether you like it or not. I was speaking of Subic bay. And I wish more countries would "kick" us out of bases like that. They sure are missing it or were you not aware of that?
"And also you were not invited into Japan you invaded and occupied that country after committing war crimes against the civilian populations of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, in testing your atom bombs."
Thats right, we weren't invited, we were attacked and they lost. And yes we certainly occupied the country, thats what you usually do.
"war crimes against the civilian populations of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, in testing your atom bombs."
Thats pure Horseshit dreamed up by a bunch of professors from their comfortable and safe chairs in the sixties, echoing communist propaganda from the fifties. I'm sick of it. If you don't think it sholud have been dropped, then get your ass into the assault craft along with every other "war crimes" advocate. Looks quite different when people are shooting at you.
By the way, you want to see real atrocities and war crimes against civilian populations and prisoners of war? Check out the Japanese and Germasn occupations during the war. It will take you quite a while.
Yes, They hanged two Japanese in Tokyo in the War crimes tribunals for water boarding, and now when Americans do it is no longer a crime. This is progress and the revisionist perspective.
And that the Philippine-American war was a war of liberation you say “And where did the Phillipinos get their country in the first place?” wow… Talk about revisionist? In Iraq Bush killed a million; President McKinley’s decisions insured that only Philippine military deaths were estimated at 20,000 with 16,000 actually counted, while civilian deaths numbered between 250,000 and 1,000,000 Filipinos. I think you should read your history a little more and not be too proud of the hell handed out by your masters of war in their failed attempts at empire. Read Mark Twain too, he had a lot to say about it too. (I suppose you’d call him pinko too, hey?)
I am certainly impressed at how sure you are of your country and how bad things would be in the world without it. They’ve done a good job on you. I think that is called indoctrination, right, very much like the old Russian communists. Yet you don't seem to realise that most of the wars are being caused by your country even under false pretence when needs be. Anything to press the conflict to arms.
To me, you represent everything of the stupid arrogant and ignorant American, and the disaster that is America. You justify American wars of aggression, war crimes, and crimes against humanity by saying that others are doing it... so that somehow makes it OK.
So you race down to the lowest common denominator. That is exactly how you loose sight of any moral worth fighting for and how conflict escalates to loose all traces of civil and legal responsibility. For example what you call “Pirates” were recently fishermen but since your country started breaking up the first government or even hope of a government in 12 years in Somalia, getting Ethiopia to occupy that country, getting the UN to accredit a puppet government of corrupt War Lords in exile… They sold the countries fishing rights, and left the fishermen no way to enforce maritime protection, their coastal waters were decimated, fished out by Chinese, Indonesian, Korean, and Russian vessels, polluted with tankers dumping ballast and cleaning tanks, and now they are in the only business left in town. That is the direct result of America’s use of violence? Calling the problem piracy shows that you can only follow what the MSM tell you and have no clue of where the problem came from and you have only one answer to it.
By bombing villages and civilians, arranging Ethiopian gangsters to invade, rape and kill and calling the Union of Islamic Courts, a terrorist organization, creating hundreds of thousands of refugees… In short by the US being a state terrorist in every sence, it has only created further violence as a reaction, and that is how the need for more and more might seems self fullfiling, and never ends, much to the profit of the MIC. And it goes on as long as the loosers like you don’t think but pay.
The atomic bombings were war crimes, so is water boarding torture. America although being more or less permanently at war has not won a war since testing / demonstrating those bombs and killing several hundred thousand civilians in the process. This must worry people like you when you invest so much faith, trust, and taxes into the ability to talk “big” and use force, when it turns out that your military is actually so F»*+king useless and just makes richer a few already very rich families in your country, but has to be supported by loosers with your mind set who must "believe", be ignorant, and think that they are the good guys protecting the world.....
You sound like one of so many Americans who is “proud” of your military culture. Sooner or later you will learn your folly, but meantime give us, the people who can think, all a break, and get yourself an education.
Sioux Rose
BILL: The Obama team should listen to you on a few things. Well-stated!
All military installations are set up so they will be difficult to displace. Same goes for military hardware contracting - spread it around and make it impossible to stop without riling up the locals dependent on its presence.
The best approach is to develop an alternative use for the offending installation, and then present your case as an economic choice, with the new use being cost-effective and more desirable. Undermine the military's talking points first - then you'll have the local population on your side (as well as all those dearly-beloved $$ signs.)
"The best approach is to develop an alternative use for the offending installation, and then present your case as an economic choice, with the new use being cost-effective and more desirable. Undermine the military's talking points first - then you'll have the local population on your side (as well as all those dearly-beloved $$ signs.)"
Excellent point.
Thats about the only way to get them on your side. We tried to close two Marine bases in 70 and the local populace almost took our heads.