{"id":217775,"date":"2016-01-20T22:56:27","date_gmt":"2016-01-20T22:56:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/the-u-s-has-an-empire-of-bases-in-the-middle-east-and-its-not-making-anyone-safer\/"},"modified":"2016-01-20T22:56:27","modified_gmt":"2016-01-20T22:56:27","slug":"the-u-s-has-an-empire-of-bases-in-the-middle-east-and-its-not-making-anyone-safer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/the-u-s-has-an-empire-of-bases-in-the-middle-east-and-its-not-making-anyone-safer\/","title":{"rendered":"The U.S. Has an Empire of Bases in the Middle East \u2013 and It\u2019s Not Making Anyone Safer"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
\"U.S.<\/p>\n

U.S. Amy (Photo: WikiCommons)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Amid the distractions of the holiday season, the\u00a0New York Times<\/em>\u00a0<\/em>revealed<\/a>\u00a0that the Obama administration is considering a Pentagon proposal to create a \u201cnew\u201d and \u201cenduring\u201d system of military bases around the Middle East.<\/p>\n

Though this is being presented as a response to the rise of the Islamic State and other militant groups, there\u2019s remarkably little that\u2019s new about the Pentagon plan. For more than 36 years, the U.S. military has been building an unprecedented constellation of bases that stretches from Southern Europe and the Middle East to Africa and Southwest Asia.<\/p>\n

The\u00a0record<\/a>\u00a0of these bases is disastrous. They have cost tens of billions of dollars and provided support for a long list of undemocratic host regimes, including Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Qatar, and Djibouti. They have enabled a series of U.S.\u00a0wars and military interventions<\/a>, including the 2003 invasion of Iraq, which have\u00a0helped make<\/a>\u00a0the Greater Middle East a cauldron of sectarian-tinged power struggles, failed states, and humanitarian catastrophe. And the bases have fueled radicalism, anti-Americanism, and the growth of the very terrorist organizations now targeted by the supposedly new strategy.<\/p>\n

If there is much of anything new about the plan, it\u2019s the public acknowledgement of what\u00a0some<\/a>\u00a0(including\u00a0TomDispatch<\/a><\/em>) have\u00a0long<\/a> suspected<\/a>: Despite years of denials about the existence of any \u201cpermanent bases\u201d in the Greater Middle East or desire for the same, the military intends to maintain a collection of bases in the region for decades, if not generations, to come.<\/p>\n

Thirty-Six Years of Base Building<\/strong><\/p>\n

According to the\u00a0Times<\/em><\/a>,<\/em>\u00a0<\/em>the Pentagon wants to build up a string of bases, the largest of which would permanently host 500 to 5,000 U.S. personnel.<\/p>\n

The system would include four \u201chubs\u201d \u2013 existing bases in Afghanistan, Iraq, Djibouti, and Spain \u2013 and smaller \u201cspokes\u201d in locations like Niger and Cameroon. These bases would, in turn, feature Special Operations forces ready to move into action quickly for what Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter has called \u201cunilateral crisis response<\/a>\u201d anywhere in the Greater Middle East or Africa. According to unnamed Pentagon officials quoted by the Times<\/em>, this proposed expansion would cost a mere pittance, just \u201cseveral million dollars a year.\u201d<\/p>\n

Far from new, however, this strategy predates both the Islamic State and al-Qaeda. In fact, it\u00a0goes back<\/a>\u00a0to 1980 and the\u00a0Carter Doctrine<\/a>.<\/p>\n

That was the moment when President Jimmy Carter first asserted that the United States would secure Middle Eastern oil and natural gas by \u201cany means necessary, including military force.\u201d Designed to prevent Soviet intervention in the Persian Gulf, the Pentagon\u00a0build-up<\/a>\u00a0under Presidents Carter and Ronald Reagan included the creation of installations in Egypt, Oman, Saudi Arabia, and on the Indian Ocean island of\u00a0Diego Garcia<\/a>.<\/p>\n

During the first Gulf War of 1991, the Pentagon deployed hundreds of thousands of troops to Saudi Arabia and neighboring countries. After that war, despite the disappearance of the Soviet Union, the U.S. military\u00a0didn\u2019t go home<\/a>. Thousands of U.S. troops and a significantly expanded base infrastructure remained in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. Bahrain became home to the Navy\u2019s\u00a0Fifth Fleet<\/a>. The Pentagon built large air installations in Qatar and expanded operations in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Oman.<\/p>\n

Following the 2001 invasion of Afghanistan and the 2003 invasion of Iraq, the Pentagon spent tens of billions of dollars building and expanding yet more bases. At the height of those U.S.-led wars, there were more than\u00a01,000 installations<\/a>, large and small, in Afghanistan and Iraq alone.<\/p>\n

Despite the closing of most U.S. bases in the two countries, the Pentagon still has access to at least\u00a0nine major bases<\/a>\u00a0in Afghanistan through 2024. After leaving Iraq in 2011, the military\u00a0returned<\/a>\u00a0in 2014 to reoccupy at least six installations. Across the Persian Gulf today, there are still U.S. bases in every country save Iran and Yemen. Even in Saudi Arabia, where widespread anger at the U.S. presence led to an official withdrawal in 2003, there are still small U.S. military\u00a0contingents<\/a>\u00a0and a\u00a0secret drone base<\/a>. There are secret bases in\u00a0Israel<\/a>, four\u00a0installations<\/a>\u00a0in\u00a0Egypt<\/a>, and at least one in\u00a0Jordan<\/a>\u00a0near the Iraqi border. Turkey<\/a>\u00a0hosts 17 bases, according to the Pentagon. In the wider region, the military has operated drones from\u00a0at least five bases<\/a>\u00a0in Pakistan in recent years, and there are nine new installations in\u00a0Bulgaria<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Romania<\/a>, along with a Clinton administration-era base still operating in\u00a0Kosovo<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In Africa, Djibouti\u2019s\u00a0Camp Lemonnier<\/a>, just miles across the Red Sea from the Arabian Peninsula, has\u00a0expanded<\/a>\u00a0dramatically since U.S. forces moved in\u00a0after 2001<\/a>. There are now upwards of 4,000 troops on the 600-acre base. Elsewhere, the military has quietly built a collection of\u00a0small bases and sites<\/a>\u00a0for drones, surveillance flights, and Special Operations forces from Ethiopia and Kenya to Burkina Faso and Senegal. Large bases in\u00a0Spain<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Italy<\/a> support what are now thousands of U.S. troops regularly deploying to Africa.<\/p>\n

A Disastrous Record<\/strong><\/p>\n

After 36 years, the results of this vast base build-up have been, to put it mildly, counterproductive. As Saudi Arabia illustrates, U.S. bases have often helped generate the radical militancy that they are now being designed to defeat. The presence of U.S. bases and troops in Muslim holy lands was, in fact, a major recruiting tool for al-Qaeda and part of Osama bin Laden\u2019s\u00a0professed motivation<\/a>\u00a0for the 9\/11 attacks.<\/p>\n

Across the Middle East, there\u2019s a\u00a0correlation<\/a>\u00a0between a U.S. basing presence and al-Qaeda\u2019s recruitment success. According to former West Point professor Bradley Bowman, U.S. bases and troops in the Middle East have been a \u201cmajor catalyst<\/a>\u00a0for anti-Americanism and radicalization\u201d since a suicide bomber killed 241 Marines in Lebanon in 1983. In\u00a0Africa<\/a>, a growing U.S. base and troop presence has \u201cbackfired,\u201d serving as a boon for insurgents, according to research published by the Army\u2019s\u00a0Military Review<\/em><\/a> and the\u00a0Oxford Research Group<\/a>.<\/em>\u00a0<\/em>A recent\u00a0U.N. report<\/a>\u00a0suggests that the U.S. air campaign against IS has led foreign militants to join the movement on \u201can unprecedented scale.\u201d\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

Part of the anti-American anger that such bases stoke comes from the support they offer to repressive, undemocratic hosts.<\/p>\n

For example, the Obama administration offered only\u00a0tepid criticism<\/a>\u00a0of the Bahraini government, crucial for U.S. naval basing, in 2011 when its leaders violently\u00a0cracked down<\/a>\u00a0on pro-democracy protesters with the help of troops from Saudi Arabia and the UAE. Elsewhere, U.S. bases\u00a0offer legitimacy<\/a>\u00a0to hosts the\u00a0Economist Democracy Index<\/a>\u00a0considers \u201cauthoritarian regimes,\u201d effectively helping to block the spread of democracy in countries including Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, Djibouti, Egypt, Ethiopia, Jordan, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE.<\/p>\n

Low-Balling<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Pentagon\u2019s basing strategy has not only been counterproductive in encouraging people to take up arms against the United States and its allies. It has also been extraordinarily expensive.<\/p>\n

Military bases across the\u00a0Greater Middle East<\/a>\u00a0cost<\/a>\u00a0the United States tens of billions of dollars every year, as part of an estimated\u00a0$150 billion<\/a>\u00a0in annual spending to maintain bases and troops abroad. Camp Lemonnier in Djibouti alone has an annual rent of $70 million and at least\u00a0$1.4 billion<\/a>\u00a0in ongoing expansion costs. With the Pentagon now proposing an enlarged basing structure of hubs and spokes from Burkina Faso to Afghanistan, cost estimates reported in the\u00a0New York Times<\/em>\u00a0in the \u201clow millions\u201d are laughable, if not intentionally misleading. (One hopes the Government Accountability Office is already investigating the true costs.)<\/p>\n

The only plausible explanation for such low-ball figures is that officials are taking for granted \u2013 and thus excluding from their estimates \u2013 the continuation of present wartime funding levels for those bases. In reality, further entrenching the Pentagon\u2019s base infrastructure in the region will commit U.S. taxpayers to billions more in annual construction, maintenance, and personnel costs (while\u00a0civilian infrastructure<\/a>\u00a0in the U.S. continues to be underfunded and\u00a0neglected<\/a>).<\/p>\n

The idea that the military needs any additional money to bring, as the\u00a0Times<\/em><\/a> put it, \u201can ad hoc series of existing bases into one coherent system\u201d should shock American taxpayers. After all, the Pentagon has already spent so many billions on them. If military planners haven\u2019t linked these bases into a coherent system by now, what exactly have they been doing?<\/p>\n

In fact, the Pentagon is undoubtedly resorting to an all-too-familiar funding strategy \u2013 using low-ball cost estimates to secure more cash from Congress on a commit-now, pay-the-true-costs-later basis.<\/p>\n

Experience shows<\/a>\u00a0that once the military gets such new budget lines, costs and bases tend to expand, often quite dramatically. Especially in places like Africa that have had a relatively small U.S. presence until now, the Pentagon plan is a template for unchecked growth. As Nick Turse has\u00a0shown<\/a>\u00a0at\u00a0TomDispatch<\/em>, the military has already built up \u201cmore than 60 outposts and access points\u2026. in at least 34 countries\u201d across the continent while insisting for years that it had only one base in Africa, Camp Lemonnier in Djibouti. With Congress finally passing the 2016 federal budget, including billions in\u00a0increased military spending<\/a>, the Pentagon\u2019s base plan looks like an opening gambit in a bid to get even more money in fiscal year 2017.<\/p>\n

Perpetuating Failure\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Above all, the base structure the Pentagon has built since 1980 has enabled military interventions and wars of choice in\u00a013 countries<\/a>\u00a0in the Greater Middle East.<\/p>\n

In the absence of a superpower competitor, these bases made each military action \u2013 worst of all the disastrous invasion of Iraq \u2013 all too easy to contemplate, launch, and carry out. Today, it seems beyond irony that the target of the Pentagon\u2019s \u201cnew\u201d base strategy is the Islamic State, whose very existence and growth we owe to the Iraq War and the chaos it created. If the White House and Congress approve the Pentagon\u2019s plan and the military succeeds in further entrenching and expanding its bases in the region, we need only ask: What violence will this next round of base expansion bring?<\/p>\n

Thirty-six years into the U.S. base build-up in the Greater Middle East, military force has failed as a strategy for controlling the region, no less defeating terrorist organizations. Sadly, this infrastructure of war has been in place for so long and is now so taken for granted that most Americans seldom think about it. Members of\u00a0Congress<\/a>\u00a0rarely question the usefulness of the bases or the billions they have appropriated to build and maintain them. Journalists, too, almost never report on the subject \u2013 except when news outlets publish material\u00a0strategically leaked<\/a>\u00a0by the Pentagon, as appears to be the case with the \u201cnew\u201d base plan highlighted by the\u00a0New York Times.<\/em><\/p>\n

Expanding the base infrastructure in the Greater Middle East will only perpetuate a militarized foreign policy premised on assumptions about the efficacy of war that should have been discredited long ago. Investing in \u201cenduring\u201d bases rather than diplomatic, political, and humanitarian efforts to reduce conflict across the region is likely to do little more than ensure enduring war.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

This piece was reprinted from Foreign Policy In Focus<\/a> by RINF Alternative News<\/a> with permission. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

U.S. Amy (Photo: WikiCommons) Amid the distractions of the holiday season, the\u00a0New York Times\u00a0revealed\u00a0that the Obama administration is considering a Pentagon proposal to create a \u201cnew\u201d and \u201cenduring\u201d system of military bases around the Middle East. Though this is being presented as a response to the rise of the Islamic State and other militant groups, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":217776,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[519],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-217775","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-newswire"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/217775","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=217775"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/217775\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/217776"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=217775"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=217775"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=217775"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}