David Vine's Base Nation

Celeste Ward Gventer reviewed David Vine's book, Base Nation in this Sunday's Washington Post. The book, which was added to my syllabus on the Politics of Overseas Bases and American Empire, basically presents an argument for why overseas U.S. bases do more harm than good. In the bad category, they're expensive, force local people off land, tie the US to dictatorships, result in environmental destruction, corrupt local economies.  

David and I have had several conversations over the years about bases. Although we disagree on several key points about the nature and consequence of US basing, we both agree that a consensus of sorts exists among policy elites regarding basing strategy. However, one point Gventer raises which is absent from Vine's book, and which Stacie Pettyjohn and I address in a working paper evaluating realist and imperial interpretations of overseas base expansion is the relationship between American strategy and bases. Gventer writes: 

Bases are merely a symptom of U.S. strategy, a visible sign of America’s expansive view of its role in the world. Indeed, the bases underscore the relative continuity of American strategy since the end of World War II.

Stacie and I have a slightly different take. US strategy evolves, as reflected by reductions, downsizing, and consolidation of overseas bases over time, and particularly following the 2004 Global Defense Posture Review.

RAND Study: Overseas Basing of U.S. Military Force

RAND recently published a massive study titled Overseas Basing of U.S. Military Forces. Commissioned by the Pentagon, it's probably the most comprehensive study on overseas bases since the Overseas Basing Commission Report released for the U.S. Congress in 2005.

I'm waiting to receive a hard copy of the report so I don't destroy my printer cartridge printing out the free pdf version online. In the meantime, you can get few snippets of the report from Michah Zenko at CFR. For a more Asia-oriented assessment of the report's findings, see this Indian Times article. Apparently, the report suggests using Port Blair in India as a site for a drone base.

Given the publication of this report, there does seem to be renewed interest on the topic of overseas bases. Stacie Pettyjohn, one of the RAND co-authors of the overseas basing study also has a concise new RAND monograph outlining the history of U.S. overseas military presence. A colleague in my department alerted me to a graduate student presenting a paper on "quasi-U.S bases" in Latin America. And of course, there's lots of interest about drone bases, particularly in the Middle East North Africa and Sub-Saharan regions.

I've moved on from base politics research but I suppose one can never fully escape one's past work, especially if they now exist as publications in the public domain. Once I get around to reading the report, I'll update this post with some insights into the RAND study.