America's overseas bases offer a window onto our military's impact in the world and in our own daily lives. The history of these hulking "Little Americas" of concrete, fast food, and weaponry provides a living chronicle of the United States in the post-World War II era. In a certain sense, in these last seven decades, whether we realize it or not, we've all come to live "behind the wire," as military personnel like to say.
We may think such bases have made us safer. In reality, they've helped lock us inside a permanently militarized society that has made all of us -- everyone on this planet -- less secure, damaging lives at home and abroad.
David Vine, a TomDispatch regular, is associate professor of anthropology at American University in Washington, D.C. His book, Base Nation: How U.S. Military Bases Abroad Harm America and the World, has just been published as part of the American Empire Project (Metropolitan Books). He has written for the New York Times , the Washington Post , the Guardian , and Mother Jones , among other publications. For more information and additional articles, visit www.basenation.us and www.davidvine.net.
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Copyright 2015 David Vine
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