NINE WAYS DRAWING DOWN OVERSEAS BASES WILL IMPROVE US SECURITY
By Andrew J. Bacevich and David Vine, Responsible Statecraft.
March 11, 2021 | EDUCATE!
Above photo: US Green Zone in Iraq. AFP.
For every State Department embassy, consulate, and mission there are nearly
three U.S. military bases overseas. The disparity between the 277 U.S.
diplomatic installations and the estimated 800 U.S. military bases abroad
symbolizes how dangerously militarized U.S. foreign policy has become.
Thankfully, across the political spectrum - and even within the U.S.
military - there is growing recognition of the problem. Last month the Biden
administration announced the Pentagon will conduct an urgently needed
"Global Posture Review" to ensure the deployment of U.S. military forces
around the world is, as President Joe Biden said, "appropriately aligned
with our foreign policy and national security priorities."
This review offers a historic opportunity to close hundreds of unnecessary
military bases abroad and improve national and international security in the
process. In contrast to former President Donald Trump's hasty attempt to
withdraw bases and troops from Syria and his attempt to punish Germany by
removing installations there, the Global Posture Review provides a chance to
close bases carefully and responsibly, save money, and build back U.S.
alliances and diplomatic presence worldwide.
"I think we have too much infrastructure overseas," the highest-ranking
officer in the U.S. military, Joint Chiefs of Staff Chair Mark Milley,
admitted in December. "Is every one of those [bases] absolutely positively
necessary for the defense of the United States?"
Milley called for "a hard, hard look," acknowledging that many overseas
bases are "derivative of where World War II ended." Since that conflict and
the start of the Cold War the United States has maintained thousands of
military bases in foreign lands. Three decades after the Cold War's end,
there are still 119 base sites in both Germany and Japan, according to the
Pentagon. In South Korea there are 80. Other bases dot the planet from Aruba
to Australia, Kenya to Qatar, among more than 80 countries occupied. Ours is
the largest collection of extraterritorial bases in world history. China has
one overseas base today, in Djibouti.
We have worked for two years with an unusually transpartisan group of
military experts who agree "We've got too many daggone bases," as former Air
Force General Roger Brady has said. Last week more than forty experts,
including veterans, a former member of Congress, scholars, analysts, and
advocates, joined the Overseas Base Realignment and Closure Coalition
(OBRACC) in sending an open letter to the Biden administration calling for
closures to improve national and global security.
Unsurprisingly given the political diversity of a coalition that has
involved the Koch Foundation and Codepink, the Cato Institute and Noam
Chomsky, the letter's co-signers differ about how many bases to close, which
to close, and how to close them. Despite our differences, we agree on nine
major reasons to begin closures. (Full disclosure: We are signers on the
letter, too).
1) The costs: an estimated $51.5 billion in 2017 - nearly two times the
State Department's budget. Add troops on installations abroad and the total
reaches more than $150 billion. Imagine what we could do with a fraction of
the billions spent to maintain this robust overseas infrastructure. Imagine
how we could repair crumbling domestic infrastructure, including
transportation, electric grids, and ventilator supplies.
2) Bases abroad have fueled a hyper-interventionist foreign policy. Overseas
installations simply make it too easy to wage war overseas. Since 1980 U.S.
presidents have used foreign bases to launch wars and other attacks at least
25 times in 15 or more countries in the greater Middle East alone. The wars
have killed, wounded, and displaced tens of millions.
3) Overseas bases are technologically outdated: rapid response forces can
deploy anywhere on Earth fast enough to be based in the continental United
States. Increasingly accurate ballistic missiles have made foreign
installations into sitting ducks for enemies.
4) Overseas bases destabilize regions and increase the likelihood of future
wars: hundreds of U.S. bases surrounding Russia, China, Iran, and North
Korea encourage their leaders to boost their own military spending and
activity. Imagine how U.S. citizens would feel if Russia or China built a
single base near our borders. The calls for a military response would be
swift.
5) OBRACC experts agree that bases in the Middle East have fueled
radicalization, anti-American propaganda, recruitment by militant groups
like al Qaeda, and deadly attacks, such as those of September 11, 2001.
6) Rather than spreading democracy, U.S. bases are found in and support at
least 40 countries led by dictators and other undemocratic regimes,
including Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Niger, and Turkey. Bases in colonized U.S.
territories are a major reason Puerto Rico, Guam, the Northern Mariana and
Virgin Islands, and American Samoa have neither gained full independence nor
full U.S. citizenship rights.
7) Overseas bases are bad for the environment. Domestic installations are
too, but overseas, the military often ignores domestic environmental
standards, resulting in the dumping of hazardous materials, toxic leaks, and
daily damage during training.
8) Bases abroad almost always generate protest against U.S. forces.
Unsurprisingly, people tend not to like their countries occupied by foreign
militaries. Locals also tend not to appreciate crimes committed by military
personnel, deadly accidents, environmental harm, and thriving sex work
industries supported by bases.
9) OBRACC experts agree that overseas deployments painfully separate U.S.
military personnel from their families. Stationing whole families overseas
disrupts the careers, schooling, and lives of spouses, children, and other
family members.
Thankfully, closing overseas bases is politically easy compared to closing
domestic installations. Unlike the Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC)
process for domestic facilities, Congress need not be involved in overseas
closures. Presidents George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and George W. Bush
closed hundreds of unnecessary bases in Europe and Asia. For parochial
reasons alone, members of Congress should support closing installations
overseas to return thousands of personnel and family members, and their
paychecks, to their districts and states.
The Biden administration should heed growing demands across the political
spectrum, from OBRACC and others, to close overseas bases. Biden should
pursue a strategy of drawing down the U.S. military posture abroad,
returning troops back home, and building up the country's diplomatic posture
and alliances. Unless we want to continue our current posture of endless
wars, run-away military spending, and armed forces poorly positioned to
defend the United States, we must seize this historic opportunity for
change.
From Popular Resistance