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In January 2004, Chalmers Johnson wrote "America's Empire of Bases" for TomDispatch, breaking what was, in effect, a silence around those strange edifices, some the size of small towns, scattered around the planet. He began it this way:
"As distinct from other peoples, most Americans do not recognize or do not want to recognize that the United States dominates the world through its military power. Due to government secrecy, our citizens are often ignorant of the fact that our garrisons encircle the planet. This vast network of American bases on every continent except Antarctica actually constitutes a new form of empire an empire of bases with its own geography not likely to be taught in any high school geography class. Without grasping the dimensions of this globe-girdling Baseworld, one can't begin to understand the size and nature of our imperial aspirations or the degree to which a new kind of militarism is undermining our constitutional order."
Seventeen years have passed since then, years in which the U.S. has been at war in Afghanistan, across the Greater Middle East, and deep into Africa. Those wars have all been if you'll excuse the use of the term this way based on that very "empire of bases," which grew to a staggering size in this century. And yet most Americans have paid no attention to it whatsoever. (Remind me of the last time any aspect of that Baseworld featured in a political campaign in this country.) And yet it was a historically unique (and expensive) way of garrisoning the planet, without the bother of the sort of colonies older empires had relied on.
At TomDispatch, however, we've never taken our eyes off that strange global imperial edifice. In July 2007, for instance, Nick Turse produced his first of many pieces on those unprecedented bases and the militarization of the planet that went with them. Citing the gigantic ones in then-U.S.-occupied Iraq, he wrote: "Even with the multi-square mile, multi-billion dollar, state-of-the-art Balad Air Base and Camp Victory thrown in, however, the bases in [Secretary of Defense Robert] Gates' new plan will be but a drop in the bucket for an organization that may well be the world's largest landlord. For many years, the U.S. military has been gobbling up large swaths of the planet and huge amounts of just about everything on (or in) it. So, with the latest Pentagon Iraq plans in mind, take a quick spin with me around this Pentagon planet of ours."
Similarly, eight years later, in September 2015, at the time of the publication of his then-new book Base Nation, David Vine took TomDispatch readers on an updated spin through that very planet of bases in "Garrisoning the Globe." He began with a paragraph that could, sadly enough, have been written yesterday (or undoubtedly, even more sadly, tomorrow):
"With the U.S. military having withdrawn many of its forces from Iraq and Afghanistan, most Americans would be forgiven for being unaware that hundreds of U.S. bases and hundreds of thousands of U.S. troops still encircle the globe. Although few know it, the United States garrisons the planet unlike any country in history, and the evidence is on view from Honduras to Oman, Japan to Germany, Singapore to Djibouti."
Today, even more sadly, Patterson Deppen offers the latest look at that global imperial structure, still standing despite the recent American disaster in Afghanistan, and for so many on this planet (as it isn't for Americans), symbolic of the nature of the U.S. presence globally. His piece is based on a brand-new count of the Pentagon's bases and reminds us that, since Johnson wrote those words about our Baseworld 17 years ago, remarkably little has changed in the way this country approaches much of the rest of the planet. Tom
The All-American Base World
750 U.S. Military Bases Still Remain Around the Planet
It was the spring of 2003 during the American-led invasion of Iraq. I was in second grade, living on a U.S. military base in Germany, attending one of the Pentagon's many schools for families of servicemen stationed abroad. One Friday morning, my class was on the verge of an uproar. Gathered around our homeroom lunch menu, we were horrified to find that the golden, perfectly crisped French fries we adored had been replaced with something called "freedom fries."
"What are freedom fries?" we demanded to know.
Our teacher quickly reassured us by saying something like: "Freedom fries are the exact same thing as French fries, just better." Since France, she explained, was not supporting "our" war in Iraq, "we just changed the name, because who needs France anyway?" Hungry for lunch, we saw little reason to disagree. After all, our most coveted side dish would still be there, even if relabeled.
While 20 years have passed since then, that otherwise obscure childhood memory came back to me last month when, in the midst of the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, President Biden announced an end to American "combat" operations in Iraq. To many Americans, it may have appeared that he was just keeping his promise to end the two forever wars that came to define the post-9/11 "global war on terror." However, much as those "freedom fries" didn't actually become something else, this country's "forever wars" may not really be coming to an end either. Rather, they are being relabeled and seem to be continuing via other means.
Having closed down hundreds of military bases and combat outposts in Afghanistan and Iraq, the Pentagon will now shift to an "advise-and-assist" role in Iraq. Meanwhile, its top leadership is now busy "pivoting" to Asia in pursuit of new geostrategic objectives primarily centered around "containing" China. As a result, in the Greater Middle East and significant parts of Africa, the U.S. will be trying to keep a far lower profile, while remaining militarily engaged through training programs and private contractors.
As for me, two decades after I finished those freedom fries in Germany, I've just finished compiling a list of American military bases around the world, the most comprehensive possible at this moment from publicly available information. It should help make greater sense of what could prove to be a significant period of transition for the U.S. military.
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