Introduction
From a hilltop at the Guantánamo Gua ntánamo Bay naval station, stat ion, you can look down on a secluded part o the base bordered by the Carib Caribbean bean Sea. Tere you’ll see thick coils o razor wire, wi re, guard towers, search lights, and concrete concrete barriers. Tis is the U.S. prison that has garnered so much international attention and controversy, with so many prisoners held or years without trial. But the prison acilities take up only a ew acres o the orty�ve-square�vesquare-mile mile naval station. Most o the base looks nothing like the detention center. center. Instead, the landscape la ndscape eatures suburban-style suburban-style housing developments, develop ments, a gol course, and recreational boating acilities. acil ities. Tis part par t o the base has received much less attention than the prison. Yet in its own way, it is ar more impor important tant or understanding who we are as a country and a nd how we relate relate to the t he rest o the world. What makes most o the naval station so remarkable is just how unremarkable it is. Looking Look ing out on Guantánamo Bay, a U.S. U.S. �ag �a g �ies outside base headquarters. Nearby, an outdoor movie theater has a regular schedule o Hollywood blockbusters. Next door, there are bright-green bright-green arti�cial tur �elds or ootball and soccer, at a new sports acility acility that also eatures two baseball diamonds, volleyball and basketball courts, and an outdoor roller-skating roller-skating rink. In the air-conditioned air-conditioned gym, ESPN’s plays on V. Across the main road there’s a large chapel, a Sportscenter plays post office, and a sunsun-bleached bleached set o McDonald’s golden arches. Neighborh bo rhoods oods with names like li ke Deer Point and Villamar Vil lamar have looping drives and spacious lawns with barbecue grills and children’s toys. Tere’s a
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BASE NATION
high school, a middle and elementary school, and a childcare acility. acility. Tere are pools and playgrounds, several public beaches, a bowling center, barber barb er and a nd beauty shops, a Pizza Hut, a aco aco Bell, a KFC, K FC, and a Subway. Subway. From the hilltop you can also aintly see two nearby Cuban towns, but most everywhere every where else on base it’ it’ss easy to orget you’re you’re in Cuba. What base residents call “downtown,” or example, could be almost anywhere in the t he United United States—or at another o the hundreds o U.S. U.S. military mi litary bases spread around the globe, g lobe, which ofen resemble sel-contained sel-contained American towns. Te downtown is where you �nd the commissary and the Navy’s version vers ion o the post post exchang exchange, e, or or PX PX—the shopping acility acility pr preesent on U.S. militaryy bases worldwide. militar worldwide. Surrounded by plentiul plentiul parking, park ing, the t he commissary and exchange eel like a Walmart, ull o clothing and consumer electronics, urniture, automotive products, and groceries. At Guantánamo, the base souvenir shop is one o the ew reminders o where you really are. Tere, along with U.S. Naval Station Guantánamo Bay postcards and mugs, you can buy a -shirt - shirt bearing the words D������� O���������. During years o debates over the closure o Guantánamo Bay’s prison, ew have asked why the United States has such a large base on Cuban territory in the t he �rst place, and whether we should have one one there at all. al l. Tis is unsurprising. Most Americans rarely think about U.S. military bases overseas. Since the end o World War War II and the t he early days d ays o the Cold C old War, War, when the United States built or acquired most o its overseas bases, Americans have considered it normal to have U.S. military installations in other countries, on other people’s people’s land. Te presence o our bases overseas has long been accepted unquestioningly and treated as an obvious good, essential to national security and global peace. Perhaps these bases register in our consciousness consciousness when there’s there’s an antibase protest in Okinawa Ok inawa or an accident in Germany. Quickly, however, they’re orgotten. O course, people living near U.S. bases in countries worldwide pay them more attention. For many, U.S. U.S. bases ba ses are one o the most prominent symbols o the United States, along with Hollywood movies, pop music, and ast ood. Indeed, the prevalence o Burger Kings and aco Bells on many o our bases abroad abroad is telling: telli ng: ours is a supersized supersized collection collect ion o bases with ranchises the world over. While there are no reestanding oreign
INTRODUCTION
3
bases on U.S. soil, today there are around eight hundred U.S. bases in oreign countries, occupied by hundreds o thousands o U.S. troops. Although the t he United States States has long had some bases in oreign oreign lands, land s, this massive global deployment o military orce was unknown in U.S. history beore World World War War II. Now Now,, seventy years yea rs afer that war wa r, there t here are still,l, according to the Pentagon, 17 stil 174 U.S. bases in i n Germany Germa ny,, 113 113 in Japan, and 83 in South Korea. Tere are hundreds more dotting the planet in Aruba and Australia, Bahrain and Bulgaria, Colombia, Colombia, Kenya, and Qatar Qata r, to name just a ew. Worldwide, we have bases in more than seventy countries. Although A lthough ew U.S. citizens citiz ens realize reali ze it, we probably have have more more bases in other people’s lands than any other people, nation, or empire in world history. And yet the subject is barely discussed in i n the media. Rarely does anyone ask whether we need hundreds o bases overseas, or whether we can afford them. Rarely R arely does anyon a nyonee consider how we would eel with a oreign base on U.S. soil, or how we would react i China, Russia, Rus sia, or Iran built even a single base somewhere near our borders today. For most in the United States, the idea o even the nicest, most benign oreign troops arriving with their tanks, planes, and high-powered high-powered weaponry and making themselves at home in our country—occupying country—occupying and encing off hundreds or thousands o acres o our land—is unthinkable. Raael Correa, the president o Ecua Ecuador, dor, highlighted this rarely considered truth in 2009 when he reused to renew the lease or a U.S. base in his country. Correa told reporters that he would approve the lease renewal on one condition: “Tey let us put a base in Miami—an Ecua Ecuadordorian base. base.”” “I there’ t here’ss no problem problem having oreign soldiers on a country’s soil,” Correa quipped, “surely they’ll let us have an Ecua Ecuador dorian ian base in the United States.”� THE SCALE
At the height o the U.S. occupations o Aghan Aghaniistan and Iraq, the total number o bases, combat outposts, and checkpoints in those two countries alone topped one thousand.� With American troops largely withdrawn, al almost most all al l o those t hose have been shut down. Yet Yet official cially ly,, according to
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BASE NATION
the most recent recent publicized count, count, the U.S. military mi litary currently still stil l occupies 686 “base “ base sites” outside outside the �fy �f y states and Washington, D.C.� While 686 is quite a �gure, that tally strangely excludes many wellknown U.S. bases, such as those in Kosovo, Kuwait, and Qatar. Less surprisingly prising ly,, the Pentagon’s Pentagon’s count also excludes secret secre t (or (or secretive) American America n bases, such as those reported in Israel and Saudi Arabia. Tere are so many bases, the t he Pentagon Pentagon itsel doesn’t doesn’t even know the true t rue total.� By my count, eight hundred is a good estimate. But what exactly is a “base”? De�nitions and terminology vary widely, and each o the military’s ser vice vicess has its own preerred vocabu vocabular laryy, including “post,” “station,” “camp,” and “ort.” Te Pentagon de�nes its generic term base site as a “physical (geographic) location”—meaning location”—meaning land, a acility acility or acilities, or land and acilities—“owned acilities—“owned by, leased to, or otherwise otherwise possessed” by an armed ser vice or another a nother compo component nent o the Department o Deense.� o o avoid linguistic lingu istic debates and a nd because it’s the simplest and most widely recognized term, I generally use “base” to mean any place, acility, acility, or installation used regularly or military purposes o any kind.� Understood this way, bases come in all sizes and shapes, rom massive sites in Germany and Japan to small radar acilities in Peru and Puerto Rico. Other bases include ports and air�elds o all sizes, repair acilities, training trai ning areas, a reas, nuclear nuclear weapons installations, missile testing acilities, arsenals, warehouses, warehouses, barracks, military schools, listening and communications posts, and drone bases. While I exclude checkpoints rom my de�nition, military militar y hospitals hospitals and a nd prisons, rehab rehab acilities, paramilitary bases, and intelligence acilities must also be considered part o the base world because o their military unctions. Even military resorts and recreation areas in places such as uscany and Seoul are bases o a kind; worldwide, the military runs more than 170 gol courses.� Te Pentagon says that it has just sixty-our sixty-our “active major installations” overseas and that most o its base sites are “small installations or locations.”” But it de�nes “small locations. “small”” as having havi ng a reported value o up to $915 $915 million.� In other words, small can be not so small. Te United States is not not the only country countr y to control military militar y bases outoutside its own territory. Britain and France have about thirteen between them, mostly in their t heir ormer colonies. colonies. Russia Russia has around nine in ormer
INTRODUCTION
5
Soviet republics. For the �rst time since World War II, Japan’s so-called so- called Sel-Deense SelDeense Forces have a oreign base, located in Djibouti alongside American and French bases. South Korea, the Netherlands, India, Australia, tra lia, Chile, urkey urkey,, and Israel reportedly have one oreign oreign base apiece. In total, all the non-U.S. non-U.S. countries in the world combined have about thirt thi rtyy oreign bases among them—as compared compared to the United States and its eight hundred or so. I we add up all the troops and the amily members living with them, plus the civilian base employees and their amily members, the bases are responsible or over hal a million Americans abroad.� THE FORWARD STRATEGY
Since the end o World War II, the idea that our country should have a large collection o bases and hundreds o thousands o troops permanently stationed overseas has been a quasireligious dictum o U.S. oreign and national security policy. Te opening words o a U.S. Army War College study bluntly declare: “U.S. national security strategy requires access to overseas military bases.” �� Te policy underlying underlying this t his deeply held held belie is known as the t he “orward strategy.” Tese two words, this wonky term o art, have had proound implications. Cold War policy held that the United States should maintain large l arge concentrations o o military mil itary orces and bases as close as possible possible to the Soviet Union, in order to hem in and “contain” supposed Soviet expansionism. Suddenly, Suddenly, as the historian George Stambuk explains, “the “t he security o the United States, in the minds o policy-makers, policy-makers, lost much o its ormer inseparability inseparabilit y rom the concept o the territory o the t he United States.”�� wo decades decades afer the Soviet Union’s collapse, in a world without another superpower rival, people across the politi political cal spectrum still stil l believe believe as a matter o aith that overseas bases and troops are essential to protecting the country. At a time when bipartisanship has hit all-time all-time lows, there are ew issues more widely agreed upon by both Republicans and Democrats Demo crats alike. al ike. Te George G eorge W. W. Bush administrat admi nistration, ion, or example, example, proclaimed that bases abroad have “maintained the peace” and provided “symbols o . . . U.S. commitments to allies and riends.”�� Te Obama
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BASE NATION
administration, or its part, declared that “orward-stationed “orward-stationed and rotationally deployed U.S. orces orces continue to be relevant and required” required ” as they t hey “provide “pr ovide a stabilizi stabilizing ng in�uence in �uence abroad.” abroad.”�� And these are a re just two prominent prominent examples. Te orward strategy has been the overwhelming consensus among politicians, national security experts, milita military ry officials, journalists, and many ma ny others. It’s It’s hard to overestimate how unquestioned this policy has been and remains. Any opposition opposi tion to maintaining maintai ning large la rge numbers o overseas overseas bases and troops is generally pilloried as peacenik idealism, or isolationism o the sort that allowed al lowed Hitler to conquer conquer Europe. Europe. Super�cially, it seems hard to argue against maintaining U.S. bases overseas. It seems logical enough that more bases mean more security. Since the bases ba ses have been there or decades, decades, it’s easy to assume that there must be good military reasons or them. U.S. leaders ofen portray our bases as a double gif to host countries, offering both security and economic bene�ts; thanks to the jobs and business contracts that bases provide and the money that U.S. military personnel and their amilies spend off base, many locals covet their presence. Why would anyone not want U.S. bases and troops in their countries? Many Americans assume that any “Yankee go home” sentiment must re�ect a seething anti-Americanism. antiAmericanism. With bases in Europe Europe and Asia, some might go so ar as to invoke the old joke that i it weren’t or us, the locals would probably be speaking German or Japanese Japanese right now. Nevertheless, or the �rst time in decades, decades, an unusually bipartisan group has slowly begun to question the conventional wisdom. “In a sense it’s unnatural that any country be the host to large numbers o oreign orces,” ormer Pentagon officia ciall and base ba se expert exp ert Andy A ndy Hoehn told t old me. “It was a necessary necessar y condition or a long time. And it’s a situation that we should be celebrating that we’re able to make that change, not one that we should be bemoaning.” bemoan ing.” A TROUBLING REC O RD
Te most obvious reason to question the overseas base status quo is economic. Especially in an era o budget budget austerity, it makes sense to ask whether closing bases abroad can be an easy source o savings. Like many
INTRODUCTION
9
thi ngs ar rom home, overseas bases are very expensive. Even when host things countries like Japan and Germany cover some o the costs, U.S. taxpayers still pay an average o $10,000 to $40,000 more per year to station a member o the military abroad compared to in the United States. Te costs o transportation, the higher cost o living in some host countries, and the expense ex pense o providing providing schools, hospitals, hospitals, housing, and a nd other support to amily members o military personnel abroad all contribute to the extra expense. With more than hal a million troops, amily members, and civilian civi lian employees on bases overseas, the expenses add up quick ly ly.. By my very conservative calculations, the total cost o maintaining bases and militar mi litaryy personnel overseas overseas reaches at least $71.8 $71.8 billion bill ion every year and could easily be in the range o $100–$120 billion. Tat’s larger than the discretionary budget budget or every government agency except the Deense Department itsel. And this number doesn’t even include spending on bases in overseas war zones. I we include the cost o bases and troops in Aghan Aghaniistan and Iraq, in 2012 the total easily topped $170 billion. Other �nancial losses add up, too. When military personnel and amily ami ly members spend spend their paychecks overseas overseas rather than t han in communities at home, the U.S. econom e conomyy is that t hat much worse worse off. Allocating A llocating U.S. taxpayer dollars dollars to build bui ld and run overs overseas eas bases means orgoing investments in areas like education, inrastructure, housing, and health care, which generally create more jobs and increase economic productivity ar more than military mi litary spending does. But beyond such such �nancial �nancia l costs, there t here are also human ones. Te amilies o military personnel are among those who suffer rom the spread o overseas bases, given the strain o distant deployments, amily separations, and requent moves. Overseas bases also contribute to the shocking rate o sexual assault in the military: an estimated one in three ser vicewomen is now assaulted, assaulted, and a disproportionate disproportionate number o o these crimes happen at bases abroad. Outside the base gates, meanwhile, in places like South Korea, one ofen �nds exploitative prostitution industries that t hat requently rely on human traffi cki cking. ng. And once one begins to look closely at U.S. bases abroad, the list o problems only grows. Worldwide, bases have caused widespread environmental damage because o leaks, accidents, and, in some cases, the
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BASE NATION
deliberate burial or discharge o toxic materials. In Okinawa, Oki nawa, U.S. U.S. troops t roops have repeatedly repeatedly committed rapes and other crimes against agai nst the local population. In Italy, twenty died afer a Marine jet severed a gondola cable. Te military militar y has also a lso repeatedly repeatedly built installations insta llations by displacing displacing local peoples rom their lands, in areas ranging rom Greenland to the tropical island o Diego Garcia. oday, the disproportionate presence o bases in plac places es that lack ull demo democratic cratic rights within the United States, such as Guam and Puerto Rico, helps perpetuate a twenty-�rsttwenty-�rst-century century orm o colonialism, tarnishing our country’s ability to be a model or democracy. Indeed, despite rhetoric rhetoric about spreading democracy democracy,, the t he government’s government’s track record record shows a clear preerence or bases in undemo u ndemocratic cratic and ofen despotic despo tic states such such as Qatar and Bahrain. Bahrai n. Te willingness wi llingness to partner part ner with unsavory characters or the sake o bases has also entangled the U.S. military with ma�a organizations in Italy. Meanwhile, imprisonment, torture, and abuse at bases rom Guantánamo Bay to Abu Ghraib have generated international anger and damaged the country’s reputation. Similarly, drone bases enabled missile strikes that have killed hundreds o civilians, producing outrage, opposition, and new enemies. In Iraq, Aghan A ghaniistan, and Saudi Arabia, oreign bases have created ertile breeding grounds or radicalism and anti-Americanism; anti-Americanism; the presence o our bases in the Muslim holy lands o Saudi Arabia was a major recruiting tool or al-Qaeda al-Qaeda and part o Osama bin Laden’s proessed motivation or the September 11, 2001, attacks. Te hundreds o bases around the globe are a major (though largely unacknowledged unack nowledged)) aspect o the “ace” our country presents presents to the world, and bases ofen show show us in an extremely ext remely un�attering light. Given the track record, rec ord, it’s little wonder wonder that the base nation has requently generated grievances, protest, and antagonistic relationships with others. UNDERMINING SECURITY
Most crucially, it’s not at all clear that U.S. bases overseas actually protect national security and global peace. During the Cold War, there was an argument to be made that to some extent U.S. bases in Europe Europe and Asia played a legitimate deensive role. In the absence o a superpower
INTRODUCTION
11
enemy today, however, the argument that bases many thousands o miles rom U.S. shores are necessary to deend the United States—or even its allies—is much harder to sustain. o the contrary, the global collection o bases has generally been offensive in nature, making it all too easy to launch interventionist wars wa rs o choice choice that have resulted in repeated disasdis asters, costing millions o lives rom Vietnam to Iraq and Aghan Aghaniistan. Tere are also questions about the degree to which bases actually increase host country saety. sa ety. Te presence presence o U.S. U.S. bases can c an turn tu rn a country into a target or oreign powers or militants. On Guam, a dark Cold War joke said sa id that Soviet nuclear missile targeters were just about the only people who could locate the island on a map; with a China-ocused China-ocused U.S. military mil itary buildup under way, way, some are expressing similar simi lar concerns about Chinese missiles potentially targeting the island today.�� For those concerned that closing bases abroad might slow deployment times in case o a legitimate deensive war or peacekeeping operation, studies by the Pentagon and others have shown that in most cases, advances in transportation tra nsportation technology have largely largely erased the t he advantage o stationing troops overseas. overseas. Nowadays, the military milita ry can ca n generally deploy troops just as quickly rom bases in the continental United States and Hawaii as it can rom many bases abroad. Rather than stabilizing dangerous regions, oreign bases requently heighten military tensions and discourage diplomatic solutions to con�icts. Placing U.S. bases near the borders o countries such as China, Russia, Rus sia, and Iran, or example, increases threats to their security and encourages them to respond by boosting their own military spending. Again, imagine imag ine how U.S. U.S. leaders would respond i Iran were to build even a single small base in Mexico, Canada, or the Carib Caribbean. bean. Notably, the most dangerous moment during the Cold War—the War—the Cuban missile crisis—revolv crisis—revolved ed around the t he creation o Soviet nuclear missile acilities acilit ies roughly ninety ninet y miles rom rom the U.S. U.S. border. Similarly, Similarly, one o the most dangerous episodes in the post–Cold post–Cold War era—Russia’s era—Russia’s seizure o Crimea and its involvem involvement ent in the war in i n Ukraine— Uk raine—has has come afer the United States encouraged encouraged the t he enlargement o NAO NAO and built a growing g rowing number o bases closer and closer to Russian Russian borders. Indeed, a major motivation behind Russia’s Russia’s actions has likely been its interest in maintaining tain ing perhaps the most impor portant tant o its small collection o oreign bases,
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BASE NATION
the naval base in the Crimean port Sevastopol. West-leaning West- leaning Ukrainian leaders’ desire to join NAO posed a direct threat to the base, and thus to the power o the Russian Russian navy nav y. Perhaps most troubling o all, the creation o new U.S. bases to protect against an alleged uture Chinese or Russian Russian threat runs the risk o becoming a sel-ul sel-ul�ll �lling ing prophecy prophecy.. By provoking provoking a Chinese and Russian Russian military response, these bases may help create the very threat against which they are supposedly designed to protect. In other words, ar rom making the world a saer place, U.S. bases overseas can actually make war more likely and America America less secure. BEHIND THE FENCES
o cast light on this long-overlooked long-overlooked world o bases, I traveled around the world, conducting research over the course o six years at more tha n sixty current and ormer bases in twelve countries and territories, including Japan, South Korea, Italy, Italy, Germany Germa ny,, Britain, Britai n, Honduras, El Salvador Salvador,, Ecua Ec uador, dor, Cuba, the United States, and the U.S. territories o Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands. In many cases, U.S. officials were very helpul in accommodating accommodati ng my research, arranging base tours and interviews, and answering questions. At other times t imes,, bases denied d enied my requests reque sts to visit, v isit, sent me rom rom office to office in endless end less quests or visitin vi sitingg rights, right s, or never responded to my inquiries. Afer exchanging more than �fy emails with military representatives over several months about visiting U.S. bases in Aghan A ghaniistan, I am still sti ll waitin wa itingg or an officia ciall response to my application. applicat ion. At the naval station stat ion on Guam, I made it on base only by attending ser vices or the Jewish holiday holiday o o Yom Yom Kippur. Kippur. On several several occasions in Germany and Italy, I was stopped and questioned by police or private security guards while wh ile on public propert propertyy outside outside a base. Outside the main mai n caserma in Vicenza, Italy, I was taking tak ing photographs o o a protest against the planned plan ned construction o a new base in the city when law enorcement seized my passport. Afer a ew ner vous moments moments and some brie questioning, the Italians and U.S. military mi litary perso personnel nnel allow al lowed ed me to enter the base—which base—which was holding an open-toopen-to-thethe-public public Fourth o July celebration. celebration. Within a ew minutes I got another polite questioning rom a civilian working on
INTRODUCTION
13
base, and I realized real ized that t hat I was going to be ollowed ollowed or the rest o the night by two riendly members o the Italian military police who asked me to call them “Starrrskeee and Huuutch.” Off base, I used a range o local contacts to meet as many ma ny people people with as many perspectives as possible, possi ble, including includ ing government govern ment officia cials, ls, local loc al residents, journalists, business leaders, academics, activists, military retirees, and many others both supportive o and opposed to bases in their communities. In Washington, D.C., and elsewhere in the United States, I interviewe inter viewed d Pentagon and State Depart Depa rtment ment officia cials ls (one (one o whom, as you will see, I inadvertently helped get �red), military analysts, reporters, veterans, and many others with knowledge about overseas bases. In most cases, I recorded my interviews or took detailed notes. In the stories that ollow, I have used quotation marks only when I know that I captured a speaker’ spea ker’ss exact words. With the military having closed most o its bases and withdrawn most troops rom Aghan Aghaniistan afer the longest war in U.S. history, we’ve reached a moment moment o transition t ransition in U.S. oreign and militar mi litaryy policy. Tere’s Tere’s no better moment moment to ask whether whet her the hundreds o overseas bases that keep on running whether the country is technically at war or at peace are a positive and necessary presence in the world, and whether they re�ect how we should be engaging with the rest o the planet. I say “we” because although alt hough I have written writ ten this th is book or readers worldworldwide, at times I address a U.S. audience directly. Ultimately, I believe all Americans bear responsibility or the base nation we’ve become and or the lives that our largely orgotten bases have shaped around the world. Tis book tells the stories o some o those lives—the lives—the U.S. troops and their amilies who live and work on oreign bases, the locals who live nearby, and others. And beyond the bases themselves, I examine the impact i mpact that t hat the Pen Pentagon’ tagon’ss oreign-base oreign-base strategy has on the lives o all o us in the United States and around the world, whether we know it or not. In this respect, respect, Base Nation is about more more than bases ba ses alone. Overseas bases offer a lens through which we can look honestly honestly and un�inchi un �inchingly ngly at our country, our place in the world, and how we interact with the rest o the planet. Examining Ame A merica’ rica’ss sprawling collection col lection o bases ba ses abroad can help us see how the United States has placed itsel on a permanent
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BASE NATION
war ooting, with an a n economy economy and a government dominated by continucontinuous preparations or battle. Ultimately, the story o our bases abroad is a chronicle o the United States in the post–W post–World War War II era. er a. In a certain certa in sense, we’ve all al l come to live behind the t he ences—“ ences—“ behind the t he wire,” as military milita ry olks olk s say. say. We We may think thi nk these t hese bases have made us saer. saer. Instead, they’v t hey’vee helped lock us inside a permanently militarized society that in many ways has made all o us less sae and less secure, damaging lives at home and abroad.
