Antiwar.com: 750 Bases in 80 Countries Is Too Many for Any Nation: Time for the US To Bring Its Troops Home
President Joe Biden did what his three predecessors could or would not: halt a seemingly endless war. It took two decades, but American troops no longer are fighting in Afghanistan.
An important aspect of the US withdrawal was closing Washington’s bases, which once spread across the country. Uncle Sam left Bagram Air Base, America’s biggest facility in Afghanistan, on his way home.
However, some 750 American military facilities remain open in 80 nations and territories around the world. No other country in human history has had such a dominant presence. Great Britain was the leading colonial power, but its army was small. London had to supplement its own troops with foreign mercenaries, as in the American Revolution. In wars with great powers Britain provided its allies with financial subsidies rather than soldiers.
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WNU Editor: I have always advocated that the U.S. should define what its national security interests are, and focus on that. Being everywhere has its limitations and drawbacks, and needless to say, a heavy cost.
15 comments:
Really makes you think about the times CNN and FOX piss their pants over Russian/Chinese war games within their own borders, huh?
Interesting article WNU. I agree with parts of it and disagree with some of it as well. One that irks me is Germany. I think
President Trump had the right idea of pulling out a good amount of our troops and equipment from there. Of course Germans screamed and cried about it and Trump's many opponents opposed it as well so nothing happened. The whole nonsense (in my opinion) with Merkel and co not wanting the US's natural gas and choosing Russia because she hated Trump was a bad move I think and will hurt them in the long run. I suspect they will learn a hard lesson this winter. The other part of the article I disagreed with was concerning US forces in Japan. I believe they are critical in the opening stages in a war with china, and if anything should be upgraded and strengthened. Just my two cents. I certainly could be wrong :)
A happy or ironic thought:
During WWII, our enemies were
Japan, Germany, Italy
our allies were: China, Russia
Today: the opposite
Fool's rules the earth
666
America need to keep all these bases around the world in order to be the big bully.
https://twitter.com/i/status/1445404117531348995
"to be the big bully..." the overwhelming majority of these deployments are at the pleasure of and benefit of the host countries. When the US sought to redeploy troops from places like Germany and South Korea, those governments complained bitterly. It's as if they view our military personnel and equipment as their property!!
I agree that a debate is needed on this. Anti-American and ideological blind organizations such as antiwar.com should not be allowed to participate in this debate. While a vibrant free press should allow them to speak they should be ignored.
I agree. Part of the problem is one group's mission critical deployment is a waste of resources for another group.
Is Japan mission critical? For now perhaps. I do think there should be a time table for our redeployment. The initial goal was to prevent a reconstitution of imperial Japan. Imperial Japan is dead, gone, and is NOT coming back. As for China, everyone in the region depends on China for their economy. As such, anything beyond insignificant and token help from them seems problematic at best.
What is not asked is should we end these deployments will they all end as badly as the Afghan redeployment did? Clearly we can't continue the current situation but we can't afford 80 Afghanistan scenarios to materialize!! Deliberately or accidently the America hating antiwar.com doesn't address this.
"The only way to ensure the closure of a base is to lose a war..." Nr. Bandow is either to ideologically blind or stupid to understand that in Afghanistan what caused the loss of the war was the closure of the bases!! Essentially had the bases remained open we could've maintained the status quo at minimal costs!!
Perhaps Mr Bandow wants 80 "Afghanistan 's" to materialize. He stupidly mentions economic and population advantages. If one person has one billion dollars and the other has none but the person with no money has a gun but the billionaire doesn't we know the outcome. If one group has 10 people and the other Dixie has one but the one has nuclear weapons we know the outcome here as well. I've long suspected antiwar.com to be a tool of our enemies.
I think you are a tool of the enemy
How so? Which policy have O advocated that would lead you to reach such a conclusion?
Antiwar.com appears to advocate a similar ill thought out approach to our withdrawal from Afghanistan for our other deployments. In my considered opinion this makes them a tool of our enemies and we could stop there. This isn't an isolated incident, we should have maintained control of Bagram and all military bases until all allied personnel and our equipment were out then Bagram should've been obliterated from the air after we and those who assisted us were our.
Our military wasn't defeated. The leadership class chose to withdrawal even though we weren't under any duress at all and to make matters worse they not only abandoned allies but extended the red carpet to the absolute wrong people in the evacuation program!!
Whose the tool of the enemy? Certainly not me
I'd say team Biden and those who support them
BTW, the Chinese have "dirt" on Hunter. Hunter is leadership class personified. They will take us to war with China to protect him and his position. I don't even think Taiwan will sign on for that. Deliberately or not these people and those who support them are the primary tools of the enemy
At a minimum
Some of those bases have uses that go beyond than just 'feet on the ground'.
Both Germany/UK bases feature troops collaborating on training and oversea operations, all done to 'strengthen' the relationship between the allies. Of course, it is an ongoing expenditure that has deep ties in state military investment.
A full pullback or even a significant one will upset the military complex machine; the US has an enormous military expenditure that isn't backed up by China's provokative idealism or Russiia's mercenaryism. So the end result is a lot of troops sitting around doing fuck all, even more so now with the pullout from Afghanistan.
America is paying for a high cost military and the military complex wants the ability to put that cost somewhere. Ability to offload them onto other countries for example.
So with Afghanistan's pullout, I can see an increase in these bases and occupancy.
wow Poster got on this fast. wonder why?
Define "base".
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