Overseas bases and US strategic posture

Abstract

‘In this timely Adelphi book, Jonathan Stevenson reminds us of the size and complexity of the American global footprint, and how foreign-policy imperatives have tended to override pressures to cut back on the number of overseas bases. In today’s tense strategic environment, this will most likely remain the case.’

Sir Lawrence Freedman, Emeritus Professor of War Studies, King’s College London

‘Jonathan Stevenson offers an indispensable look at the United States’ overseas bases in 2022 and persuasively explains why they remain critical to American strategy today and for the foreseeable future.’

Stacie L. Pettyjohn, Senior Fellow and Director of the Defense Program at the Center for a New American Security

Overseas military bases have been the bedrock of the United States’ ability to project military power, exert political influence and deter potential adversaries since the Second World War. But fatigue with America’s ‘forever wars’, as well as more nuanced financial and strategic reasons, have inclined the public and policy community to favour reducing US global military activities and overseas presence.

In this Adelphi book, Jonathan Stevenson argues that this desire does not necessarily translate into sound strategy. Overseas bases are a key element of the reassurance required to resurrect and bolster America’s reputation among its allies and adversaries. Meanwhile, strategic imperatives and geopolitical realities impose restraints in every theatre. The fluidity prevailing in the Middle East and Indo-Pacific counsels maintaining forward-deployed forces there at roughly the current level. Russia’s confrontational posture towards NATO and invasion of Ukraine, as well as NATO’s short- and medium-term reliance on US capabilities, require the American presence in Europe to increase and expand eastward. The US should not commit itself to a foreign policy that is heavy on forward-deployed military power and light on diplomacy. But paradoxically, reducing forward military presence may not be consistent with a policy that is less focused on military power as a means of achieving stability and security.

Notes

1 David Vine, ‘Lists of US Military Bases Abroad, 1776–2021’, American University Digital Research Archive, 4 July 2021, https://doi.org/10.17606/7em4-hb13.

2 ‘US Military Bases Overseas: The Facts’, Overseas Base Realignment and Closure Coalition, October 2021, https://www.overseasbases.net/uploads/5/7/1/7/57170837/fact_sheet_on_us_military_bases_overseas_obracc_2021_10_18.pdf.

3 See, for example, Raphael S. Cohen, ‘Why Overseas Military Bases Continue to Make Sense for the United States’, War on the Rocks, 21 January 2021, https://warontherocks.com/2021/01/why-overseas-military-bases-continue-to-make-sense-for-the-united-states/.

4 George Washington’s Farewell Address, 1796, The Avalon Project, Yale Law School, https://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/washing.asp.

5 Thomas Jefferson’s First Inaugural Address, 1801, The Avalon Project, Yale Law School, https://avalon.law.yale.edu/19th_century/jefinau1.asp.

6 See James M. McPherson, Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era (Oxford, Oxford University Press), p. 313.

7 On the strategic evolution of the US summarised here, see George C. Herring, From Colony to Superpower: US Foreign Relations Since 1776 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011).

8 Letter from Theodore Roosevelt to Joseph Bucklin Bishop, 23 February 1904, Theodore Roosevelt Center Digital Library, https://www.theodorerooseveltcenter.org/Research/Digital-Library/Record/ImageViewer?libID=o281261&imageNo=1.

9 See Steven T. Ross, American War Plans 1890–1939 (London: Frank Cass, 2002).

10 See Anna Diamond, ‘The Original Meanings of the “American Dream” and “America First” Were Starkly Different From How We Use Them Today’, Smithsonian Magazine, October 2018, https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/behold-america-american-dream-slogan-book-sarah-churchwell-180970311/.

11 David Vine, ‘The United States Probably Has More Foreign Military Bases Than Any Other People, Nation, or Empire in History’, Nation, 14 September 2015, https://www.thenation.com/article/world/the-united-states-probably-has-more-foreign-military-bases-than-any-other-people-nation-or-empire-in-history/.

12 See, for example, Townsend Hoopes, ‘Overseas Bases in American Strategy’, Foreign Affairs, vol. 37, no. 1, October 1958, pp. 69–82. See also Harold. W. Rood, ‘The Possible Utility of the US Overseas Base Structure’, Technical Report no. 34 (Menlo Park, CA: Stanford Research Institute, 1962).

13 Tim Kane, ‘The Decline of American Engagement: Patterns in US Troop Deployments’, Hoover Institution Economics Working Paper 16101, 11 January 2016, http://www.hoover.org/sites/default/files/research/docs/16101_-_kane_-_decline_of_american_engagement.pdf.

14 See Elliott V. Converse III, Circling the Earth: United States Plans for a Postwar Overseas Military Base System, 1942– 1948 (Maxwell Air Force Base, AL: Air University Press, 2005).

15 David Vine, Base Nation: How US Military Bases Abroad Harm America and the World (New York: Metropolitan Books/Henry Holt, 2015).

16 US Department of Defense, Strengthening US Global Defense Posture (Washington DC: US Department of Defense, September 2004). See IISS, ‘The US Global Posture Review’, Strategic Comments, vol. 10, no. 7, September 2004.

17 Kane, ‘The Decline of American Engagement: Patterns in US Troop Deployments’, p. 5.

18 For a prominent example of one touting the notion of an American empire, see Niall Ferguson, Colossus: The Price of America’s Empire (New York: Penguin Press, 2004). Several ranking American analysts and scholars immediately challenged Ferguson’s view; for example, John Lewis Gaddis, ‘The Last Empire, for Now’, New York Times, 25 July 2004, https://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/25/books/the-last-empire-for-now.html.

19 One of the most influential proponents of this idea of US primacy in the early 2000s was Thomas P.M. Barnett, then a senior strategic researcher and professor at the US Naval War College, who developed it in a series of government-sponsored studies and briefings styled ‘the Pentagon’s new map’, and a book of the same name. Thomas P.M. Barnett, The Pentagon’s New Map: War and Peace in the Twenty-first Century (New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 2004). See also Thomas P.M. Barnett, ‘The Pentagon’s New Map’, Esquire, March 2003, pp. 174–9, 227–8.

20 Barnett understood the role of the US armed forces after 1991 to be defending and expanding the frontiers of globalisation. Barnett, The Pentagon’s New Map, pp. 109, 121, 179.

21 Ibid., pp. 379–85.

22 See Alexander Cooley, ‘New Bases, Old Politics: The Rise and Decline of the US Military Presence in Central Asia’, in Luís Rodrigues and Sergiy Glebov (eds), Military Bases: Historical Perspectives, Contemporary Challenges, NATO Science for Peace and Security Series E: Human and Societal Dynamics, vol. 51 (Amsterdam: IOS Press, 2009), pp. 116–26.

23 See, for example, Akhilesh Pillalamarri, ‘The United States Just Closed Its Last Base in Central Asia’, Diplomat, 10 June 2014, https://thediplomat.com/2014/06/the-united-states-just-closed-its-last-base-in-central-asia/.

24 See, for instance, Daniel Benaim and Michael Wahid Hanna, ‘The Enduring American Presence in the Middle East’, Foreign Affairs, 7 August 2019, https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/middle-east/2019-08-07/enduring-american-presence-middle-east; and F. Gregory Gause III, ‘Should We Stay or Should We Go? The United States and the Middle East’, Survival: Global Politics and Strategy, vol. 61, no. 5, October–November 2019, pp. 7–24.

25 For a far more detailed and systematic account of the history of the United States overseas defence posture, see Stacie L. Pettyjohn, U.S. Global Defense Posture, 1783–2011 (Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation, 2012).

26 See Alan J. Vick et al., Air Base Defense: Rethinking Army and Air Force Roles and Functions (Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation, 2020).

27 Vine, ‘The United States Probably Has More Foreign Military Bases Than Any Other People, Nation, or Empire in History’.

28 Ellen Mitchell, ‘Pentagon Chief Pushes for New Round of Base Closures’, Hill, 18 October 2017, http://thehill.com/policy/defense/356054-pentagon-chief-pushes-for-new-round-of-base-closures.

29 See Frederico Bartels, ‘Report Required: The Pentagon Must Be Pushed into Examining Its Excess Infrastructure’, National Interest, 8 March 2020, https://nationalinterest.org/feature/report-required-pentagon-must-be-pushed-examining-its-excess-infrastructure-130292; and Aaron Mehtaand Joe Gould, ‘The New BRAC Strategy: Capability Over Cost Savings’, Defense News, 14 December 2017, https://www.defensenews.com/pentagon/2017/12/14/the-new-brac-strategy-capability-over-cost-savings/.

30 Mackenzie Eaglen, ‘Esper’s Reforms: An Interim Report Card’, Defense One, 12 October 2020, https://www.defenseone.com/ideas/2020/10/espers-reforms-interim-report-card/169177/.

31 RAND Corporation, 2013 RAND Annual Report, 2014, https://www.rand.org/pubs/corporate_pubs/CP1-2013.html.

32 James Digby and Joan Goldhamer, ‘The Development of Strategic Thinking at RAND, 1948–63: A Mathematical Logician’s View – An Interview with Albert Wohlstetter’, 5 July 1985 (Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation, 1997), p. 35.

33 A.J. Wohlstetter et al., Selection and Use of Strategic Air Bases, RAND R-266, 1 April 1954 (declassified 1962), https://www.rand.org/pubs/reports/R0266.html.

34 The RAND study led to the first detailed operational articulation of one of the most fundamental distinctions in nuclear strategy: between firststrike and second-strike deterrence. It was the latter that stabilised the nuclear confrontation and kept the Cold War cold.

35 See Michael J. Lostumbo et al., Overseas Basing of US Military Forces: An Assessment of Relative Costs and Strategic Benefits (Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation, 2013), https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RR201.html.

36 See Amy F. Woolf, Conventional Prompt Global Strike and Long-Range Ballistic Missiles: Background and Issues, Congressional Research Service, 16 December 2020, https://fas.org/sgp/crs/nuke/R41464.pdf.

37 Ibid.

38 See Kingston Reif, ‘US Military Debates Ground-launched Missiles’, Arms Control Today, May 2021, https://www.armscontrol.org/act/2021-05/news/us-military-debates-ground-launched-missiles.

39 See RADM Walter E. Carter, Jr., USN, ‘Sea Power in the Precision-missile Age’, Proceedings, vol. 140, no. 5, May 2014.

40 See, for example, Jerry Hendrix, ‘The US Navy Needs to Radically Reassess How It Projects Power’, National Review, 4 May 2015; Jeff Vandenengel, ‘Too Big to Sink’, Proceedings, vol. 143, no. 5, May 2017; and David W. Wise, ‘The US Navy’s Big Mistake – Building Tons of Supercarriers’, War Is Boring, 27 May 2015, https://warisboring.com/the-u-s-navy-s-big-mistake-building-tons-of-supercarriers/. For a contrary view, see Loren B. Thompson, ‘Five Reasons US Aircraft Carriers Are Nearly Impossible to Sink’, National Interest, 11 August 2016, https://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-buzz/five-reasons-us-aircraft-carriers-are-nearly-impossible-sink-17318.

41 See, for example, Loren B. Thompson, ‘US Overseas Bases Are Much More Vulnerable Than Aircraft Carriers’, National Interest, 7 September 2016, http://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-buzz/us-overseas-bases-are-much-more-vulnerable-aircraft-carriers-17612; and Thompson, ‘Five Reasons US Aircraft Carriers Are Nearly Impossible to Sink’.

42 See John Glaser, ‘The Case Against US Overseas Military Bases’, Foreign Affairs, 25 July 2017, https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/2017-07-25/case-against-us-overseas-military-bases.

43 See Dean Wilkening, ‘Hypersonic Weapons and Strategic Stability’, Survival: Global Politics and Strategy, vol. 61, no. 5, October–November 2019, p. 136.

44 CDR Thomas Shugart, USN, ‘First Strike: China’s Missile Threat to US Bases in Asia’, Center for a New American Security, 28 June 2017, https://www.cnas.org/publications/reports/first-strike-chinas-missile-threat-to-u-s-bases-to-asia.

45 See Daniel Goure, US Air Dominance in a Fiscally Constrained Environment: Defining Paths to the Future (Arlington, VA: Lexington Institute, 2013), pp. 26, 33, http://www.lexingtoninstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/GlobalPrecisionStrike.pdf.

46 See Joel Wuthnow, The Impact of Missile Threats on the Reliability of US Overseas Bases: A Framework for Analysis (Carlisle, PA: US Army War College, Strategic Studies Institute, 2005), available at https://www.jstor.org/stable/resrep11437.

47 Yash Rojas, ‘Ellsworth Successfully Validates Base’s Long-range Strike Capability’, Pacific Air Forces, 21 May 2014, http://www.pacaf.af.mil/News/Article-Display/Article/591360/ellsworth-successfully-validates-bases-long-range-strike-capability/.

48 See Wade S. Karren, ‘Long-range Strike: The Bedrock of Deterrence and America’s Strategic Advantage’, Air & Space Power Journal, vol. 26, no. 3, May–June 2012, p. 76, http://www.airuniversity.af.mil/Portals/10/ASPJ/journals/Volume-26_Issue-3/V-Karren.pdf. See also Mark Gunzinger and Bryan Clark, Sustaining America’s Precision Strike Advantage (Washington DC: Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, 2015), http://csbaonline.org/uploads/documents/Sustaining-Americas-Precision-Strike-Advantage.pdf.

49 See, for example, Jeff Becker, ‘When It Comes to Missiles, Don’t Copy Russia and China – Leapfrog Them’, War on the Rocks, 30 June 2020, https://warontherocks.com/2020/06/when-it-comes-to-missiles-dont-copy-russia-and-china-leapfrog-them/; and International Institute for Strategic Studies, ‘Chinese and Russian Air-launched Weapons: A Test for Western Air Dominance’, in The Military Balance 2018 (London: Routledge for the IISS, 2018), pp. 7–9; see also Barry D. Watts, ‘The Evolution of Precision Strike’ (Washington DC: Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, 2013), http://csbaonline.org/uploads/documents/Evolution-of-Precision-Strike-final-v15.pdf.

50 See Dan Gouré, ‘Why the US Military Needs Long Range Precision Fires’, National Interest, 7 October 2020, https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/why-us-military-needs-long-range-precision-fires-170282.

51 Mark Gunzinger, ‘Stand In, Standoff’, Air Force Magazine, 1 July 2020, https://www.airforcemag.com/article/stand-in-standoff/. See also the longer paper on which this article is based: Mark A. Gunzinger, Long-range Strike: Resetting the Balance of Stand-in and Stand-off Forces, Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies, 18 June 2020, https://mitchellaerospacepower.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/a2dd91_4f2e5df4b4b2464ca6d50d0dcd9ea04f-2.pdf.

52 See Jerry Hendrix, ‘Filling the Seams in US Long-range Penetrating Strike’, Center for a New American Security, August 2018, https://www.cnas.org/publications/reports/filling-the-seams-in-u-s-long-range-penetrating-strike.

53 See Joseph Trevithick, ‘This Is the Pentagon’s $27 Billion Master Plan to Deter China in the Pacific’, Drive, 5 March 2021, https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/39610/this-is-the-pentagons-27-billion-master-plan-to-deter-china-in-the-pacific. See also Jesse Johnson, ‘US Indo-Pacific Chief Suggests Anti-China Missile Network for Western Pacific’, Japan Times, 10 March 2021, https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2021/03/10/asia-pacific/politics-diplomacy-asia-pacific/us-china-missile-network/; and John Gordon IV et al., Army Fires Capabilities for 2025 and Beyond (Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation, 2019), https://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/research_reports/RR2100/RR2124/RAND_RR2124.pdf.

54 See Steve Trimble, ‘Competition for US Long-range Strike Mission Heats Up’, Aviation Week, 26 August 2020, https://aviationweek.com/defense-space/missile-defense-weapons/competition-us-long-range-strike-mission-heats.

55 See Dan Gouré, ‘The Army’s “Multi-domain Operations in 2028” Is an Important Doctrinal Development’, RealClear Defense, 3 May 2019, https://www.realcleardefense.com/articles/2019/05/03/the_armys_multi-domain_operations_in_2028_is_an_important_doctrinal_development_114389.html.

56 Stephanie Worth, ‘Sustaining Multi-domain Operations: The Logistical Challenges of Future War’, Joint Base Elmendorf–Richardson, 11 October 2019, https://www.jber.jb.mil/News/News-Articles/NewsDisplay/Article/1989197/sustaining-multi-domain-operations-the-logistical-challenges-of-future-war/. On the limitations of MDO and the ongoing requirement of massed forces and attrition in war fighting, see Franz-Stefan Gady, ‘Manoeuvre Versus Attrition in US Military Operations’, Survival: Global Politics and Strategy, vol. 63, no. 4, August–September 2021, pp. 131–48.

57 See Ian Williams, ‘Adapting to the Hypersonic Era’, Center for Strategic and International Studies, 2 November 2020, http://defense360.csis.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/Williams_Hypersonic-Era_Final.pdf.

58 See Joseph T. Buontempo and Joseph E. Ringer, ‘Airbase Defense Falls Between the Cracks’, Joint Force Quarterly, no. 97, 2nd Quarter 2020, https://ndupress.ndu.edu/Portals/68/Documents/jfq/jfq-97/jfq-97_114-120_Buontempo-Ringer.pdf.

59 See Michael Beckley, ‘In Future Wars, the US Military Will Have Nowhere to Hide’, Foreign Policy, 20 November 2019, https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/11/20/russia-china-increasingly-able-attack-united-states-bases-networks-war/.

60 See Alan Cummings, ‘Hypersonic Weapons: Tactical Uses and Strategic Goals’, War on the Rocks, 12 November 2019, https://warontherocks.com/2019/11/hypersonic-weapons-tactical-uses-and-strategic-goals/.

61 See Andreas Wenger, ‘Crisis and Opportunity: NATO’s Transformation and the Multilateralization of Détente, 1966–1968’, Journal of Cold War Studies, vol. 6, no. 1, Winter 2004, pp. 22–74. France formally reintegrated into NATO’s military command structure in 2009.

62 See Jonathan Stevenson, Thinking Beyond the Unthinkable: Harnessing Doom from the Cold War to the Age of Terror (New York: Viking, 2008), pp. 51–2.

63 See, for example, Andrew F. Krepinevich, Maritime Warfare in a Mature Precision-Strike Regime (Washington DC: Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, 2014), p. 15, https://csbaonline.org/uploads/documents/MMPSR-Web.pdf. See also Frank Hoffman, USMCR, ‘What We Can Learn from Jackie Fisher’, Proceedings, vol. 130, no. 4, April 2004, pp. 68–71.

64 See Stephen Kuper, ‘Arsenal Planes Won’t Address the US and Allied Long-range Strike Shortfalls’, Defence Connect, 19 June 2020, https://www.defenceconnect.com.au/strike-air-combat/6305-arsenal-planes-won-t-address-the-us-and-allied-long-range-strike-shortfalls; Abraham Mahsie, ‘“Not a Moment to Lose”: Army in Chase for Long-range Precision Fires’, Washington Examiner, 24 August 2020, https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/policy/defense-national-security/not-a-moment-to-lose-army-in-chase-for-long-range-precision-fires; and Joseph Trevithick, ‘The Army Now Wants Hypersonic Cannons, Loitering Missiles, and a Massive Supergun’, Drive, 3 April 2018, https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/19847/the-army-now-wants-hypersonic-cannons-loitering-missiles-and-a-massive-supergun. See Shawn Brimley, ‘While We Can: Arresting the Erosion of America’s Military Edge’, Center for a New American Security, December 2015, https://www.cnas.org/publications/reports/while-we-can-arresting-the-erosion-of-americas-military-edge.

65 Lostumbo et al., ‘Overseas Basing of US Military Forces: An Assessment of Relative Costs and Strategic Benefits’, pp. 79–80.

66 ‘US Image Suffers as Publics Around World Question Trump’s Leadership’, Pew Research Center, 26 June 2017, http://www.pewglobal.org/2017/06/26/u-s-image-suffers-as-publics-around-world-question-trumps-leadership/.