STRATEGIC FOCUS: U.S. MILITARY FOOTPRINT

COMMENTARY ARCHIVES, 1 Jul 2009

Foreign Policy in Focus

The United States maintains more than 700 bases around the world and is pushing to set up even more. What are these bases doing, how is the Pentagon rethinking their functions, and how can we reduce this military footprint?

In The Other Guantanamo, David Vine looks at how the U.S. base on Diego Garcia quietly prepares for a role in staging a possible attack on Iran.

The Pentagon is restructuring its bases in South Korea. Jae-Jung Suh portrays the future of the U.S. global military presence.

Marko Beljac discusses the cataclysmic implications of the looming U.S. weaponization of space.

In NATO at a Crossroads, Ian Davis describes a plan for a new concept of NATO’s mission and a reformed nuclear policy.

There is a growing number of campaigns that seek the withdrawal of U.S. foreign military bases. And as Joseph Gerson points out in Resisting the Empire, they may just succeed.

In Guantanamo: The Bigger Picture, Frida Berrigan makes the case for shutting down not just the prison, but the military base where it sits.

Violence against women, violation of local autonomy, and contamination of the environment are all part of the issue of gender and U.S. bases in the Asia-Pacific.

In Yankees Head Home, John Lindsey-Poland explains how the U.S. Military is reconfiguring its unpopular presence in Latin America.

The U.S. is attempting to place military bases in the Czech Republic and Poland. Watch FPIF and others speak out against these plans.

Although the United States closed its bases in the Philippines in 1991, Herbert Docena writes in In The Dragon’s Lair, it has nevertheless managed to deepen its military presence and intervention in the islands.

The Bush administration wants to place U.S. military troops and bases permanently on Iraqi soil despite strong objections from many Democrats, argues Adil Shamoo in The Enduring Trap in Iraq.

As Joanne Landy and Thomas Harrison explain in Pushing Missile Defense in Europe, the United States wants to establish bases in Poland and the Czech Republic—over the objections of the citizens of those countries.

With the new Africa Command, Daniel Volman and Beth Tuckey argue in Militarizing Africa (Again), the United States is increasing its military presence on an energy-rich continent.

And Tom Engelhardt laments in The Million Year War that there’s a risk that the United States will never withdraw from Iraq.

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Published by Foreign Policy In Focus (FPIF), a project of the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS, online at www.ips-dc.org). Copyright © 2009, Institute for Policy Studies.

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