Government

The Romans had them and by the standards of the day they were really far flung. I am talking about military bases in foreign countries. The Romans felt that they needed them to control not only the conquered countries, but to keep the barbarians out. Sometimes they were considered a sort of buffer between Rome and the enemy countries, or raiding hordes. The Romans had outposts and bases throughout their conquered territories. The difference then from today is that a lot of the conquered countries eventually became part of the Roman Empire. Eventually the Roman Empire fell apart and even their bases, forts and outposts didn't hold. As World War II was about to begin, the Germans began to conquer territory and establish bases in these territories. The idea was to use them as launching platforms to attack more countries from. German bases sprang up all through the conquered countries of Europe and even on some territories in countries that were friendly to Germany. Bases were a fact of life. They projected political supremacy to the world.

Known Countries With US Bases
Graphic Source: Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 2.0 France

Today the U.S. has bases all over the world. They are the sign of a military that has gotten out of hand. The military will ask for the moon and if they get it, then they will ask for the rest of the planets. Oh it isn't just the U.S. military, it is any military from any country. The military is in the business of winning wars and they have to look at everything from that point of view. That is why they need oversight. Eisenhower warned us not to let the military industrial complex get too much power. His warnings went unheeded. One has only to look at how all those failed projects that cost us hundreds of billions of dollars over the years and gave us absolutely nothing in return, were approved. When I talk about these things I usually go back to the anti-ballistic missile project. That was the one where we were going to shoot down an incoming ballistic missile traveling over 10,000 mph with another missile. The tests produced a very high failure rate and this was when we knew where the missile was coming from. So what happened, did we cancel the project? NO! The military switched to computer simulations and suddenly all the tests were successful.

US Bases In Bulgaria
Graphic Source: CIA

We have secret bases that many people would be surprised to learn about. They are not on any list available to the public, but I can give you an example and tell you how they were found. Good ole Google Earth photographed an American base in of all places, Pakistan. Three UAVs were visible on the air strip. UAVs are remote controlled planes. The photo was taken in 2008. When we look at the list of friendly countries, none could be friendlier to the U.S. than Britain. Quite a few British bases and air fields are also being used by the American military. Britain herself had one of the most extensive chain of foreign bases in the nineteenth century. When World War II ended, the United States had the most extensive system of foreign bases that the world had ever seen. They had over 30,000 installations. No that is not a typo or misinformation. The U.S. even had bases at both poles. When World War II ended then president Harry Truman stated, “Though the United States wants no profit or selfish advantage out of this war, we are going to maintain the military bases necessary for the complete protection of our interests and of world peace. Bases which our military experts deem to be essential for our protection we will acquire. We will acquire them by arrangements consistent with the United Nations Charter”

Ft. Sherman Panama
Photo Source: GNU Free Documentation License,

An installation may not really be a base as such, it could also be just a small structure with a few military. It is said that the amount of true U.S. bases around the world in 1988 was 794, according to James R. Blaker, United States Overseas Basing, 1990. As you can see by Truman's statement that we were on the road to base expansion. We didn't expand though, we reduced the number of bases, but then came the Korean War. We had closed many of our bases, but when the Korean War started, the military began to rebuild the base structure all over the world. When the Cold War ended, President Bush stated that maybe we could get along with a 25% smaller presence in the area, but on the very day he said that, we invaded Iraq and everything changed. Did he know that we were invading Iraq? Of course he did. Then why did he make this statement? Politics, it was just politics, he certainly did not mean to carry it out.

When President Clinton stated that he would reduce the permanent presence in overseas bases, all that happened at the time was that the military got shorter assignments at these bases, but since more military were being moved in and out, nothing really changed. Before 9/11 the U.S. military had stated that on any given day, over 60,000 military personnel were conducting temporary operations in about 100 countries. On some foreign bases we have stored huge amount of military equipment. The military states that this means if trouble breaks out in that region they don't have to take time to ship material there. Could this turn out to be one of the biggest mistakes we have ever made? Would this make it possible for saboteurs to render much of this equipment inoperable. Look at it this way, if a person can dress like a U.S. soldier and then blow themselves up in the midst of real soldiers on a base, what couldn't it be possible to infiltrate an equipment storage area?

In 2002 NATO Watch estimated that the U.S. had between 700 to 800 bases worldwide and we had military personnel in 156 countries. It is estimated that 244,065 U.S. military personnel are deployed worldwide. We are said to have about 845,441 buildings and control 30 million acres of land. In 2005 the exact figure for foreign bases was thought to be 737. When you add up all the land the bases are on, the U.S. military becomes the biggest landlord in the world. The U.S. military has gone from spending over 350 Billion dollars per year in 1998 to about 650 billion per year in 2008. That is almost double in ten years and that is only what they admit to. Isn't it time that we closed some of these bases? The U.S. is in economic trouble. Think of the money we could save. Many of these bases really serve no purpose anymore except to prove that we have a political presence. My guess is that we could do away with at least half of them and not even notice. This would also free up a good portion of our military for other duties. Isn't it time we got out of places like Japan? Why are we in Europe anymore, they can take care of themselves? It is certainly past time to reassess our presence at many of these bases.