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This book explores domestic opposition to formal US military bases in Latin America, and provides evidence of a growing network of informal and secretive base-like arrangements that supports US military operations in the Latin American Region.

The first decades of the twenty-first century in Latin America have been characterized by rapidly intensifying US-led militarization, with the US acquiring controversial rights and unprecedented access to facilities in Panama, Honduras, and Peru. US Military Bases and Anti-Military Organizing is the first book to look closely at the struggles of anti-military activists in Ecuador as they attempted to challenge what was, for just under ten years, the US Air Force's largest forward operating location in the Western hemisphere. Drawing on sixteen months of fieldwork with US military personnel, US private military contractors, and anti-military activists on and around this facility in Manta, Ecuador, Fitz-Henry reorients contemporary anthropological and political debate about US-led militarization by focusing on the neglected range of ways in which the anti-base movement came to be rejected by local residents.

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, has 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.

In Armed Guests, Sebastian Schmidt develops a theory to explain the emergence of this phenomenon, which he calls "sovereign basing," and in doing so, shows how this new practice fundamentally changed state sovereignty and the very nature of security competition. He applies concepts derived from pragmatist thought to a historical study of the relations between the United States and its wartime allies to explain how sovereign basing originated through the efforts of policymakers to come to grips with the unique security environment of the postwar era.

Over the past century, the United States has created a global network of military bases. While the force structure offers protection to US allies, it maintains the threat of violence toward others, both creating and undermining security. Amy Austin Holmes argues that the relationship between the US military presence and the non-US citizens under its security umbrella is inherently contradictory. She suggests that while the host population may be fully enfranchised citizens of their own government, they are at the same time disenfranchised vis-à-vis the US presence. This study introduces the concept of the 'protectariat' as they are defined not by their relationship to the means of production, but rather by their relationship to the means of violence. Focusing on Germany and Turkey, Holmes finds remarkable parallels in the types of social protest that occurred in both countries, particularly non-violent civil disobedience, labor strikes of base workers, violent attacks and kidnappings, and opposition parties in the parliaments

AuthorAcknowledgements GlossaryChapter One -- Overseas bases and US strategic posture Some historical background Bring the legions home? Evolutions in military affairs Few opportunities, many constraints Chapter Two -- Basing and US grand strategy The Middle East China and the Indo-Pacific Europe and NATO Chapter Three -- Optimising US regional footprints: The Middle East Contingencies Basing implications Carrier relevance Changing environment Chapter Four -- Optimising US regional footprints: China and the Indo-Pacific Military considerations Political considerations Chapter Five -- Optimising US regional footprints: Europe Russian revanchism A robust presence Chapter Six -- Conclusion The Indo-Pacific The Middle East Europe Prospects NotesIndex

The overseas basing of troops has been a central pillar of American military strategy since World War II--and a controversial one. Are these bases truly essential to protecting the United States at home and securing its interests abroad--for example in the Middle East-or do they needlessly provoke anti-Americanism and entangle us in the domestic woes of host countries? Embattled Garrisons takes up this question and examines the strategic, political, and social forces that will determine the future of American overseas basing in key regions around the world. Kent Calder traces the history of overseas bases from their beginnings in World War II through the cold war to the present day, comparing the different challenges the United States, Britain, France, and the Soviet Union have confronted. Providing the broad historical and comparative context needed to understand what is at stake in overseas basing, Calder gives detailed case studies of American bases in Japan, Italy, Turkey, the Philippines, Spain, South Korea, the Balkans, Afghanistan, and Iraq. He highlights the vulnerability of American bases to political shifts in their host nations--in emerging democracies especially--but finds that an American presence can generally be tolerated when identified with political liberation rather than imperial succession. --From publisher's description.

"Special District It'aewŏn": Of Containment and FermentationLiberalizing It'aewŏn: A Street of One's Own?; It'aewŏn Suspense: Space of Pleasure, Realm of Fear; A Really Violent Bunch?; It'aewŏn('s) Freedom; 6 Demilitarizing the Urban Entertainment Zone? Hongdae and the US Armed Forces in the Seoul Capital Area; Spoiling the Show?; Hongdae's Forbidden Fruits; Yanggongju Revisited: "Are Western Bastards that Good?"; "Sexual Harassment of National Proportions"; Anti-militarist Punks in Hongdae; From Hongdae to Taechuri; Exit the Demilitarized Zone, Enter the Temporary Autonomous Zone?

In the years around the Second World War, policymakers in the US & Western Europe faced security challenges occasioned by the development of new technologies & the emergence of transnational ideological conflict. In coming to terms with these challenges, they developed the historically novel practice in which a state might maintain a long-term, peacetime military presence on the territory of another sovereign state without the subjugation of the latter. Such arrangements between substantive equals were previously unthinkable: under the inherited understanding of sovereignty, in which there was a tight linkage between military presence & territorial authority, such military presences could be understood only in terms of occupation or annexation. This text applies concepts derived from pragmatist thought to a historical study of the relations between the US & its wartime allies to explain the origin of this phenomenon.

Sociologist Grace M. Cho investigates the origins of a Korean dish called budae jjigae ("military base stew") and reveals its layered meanings for Korean American diasporic identity.

Introduction : the base closure crisis -- BRAC and federal public policy : defense conversion from 1945 to 2016 -- National redevelopment trends : challenges of governance, financing, and environmental remediation -- Planning for transformation : the folly of best practices in redevelopment -- Collaborative governance : how re-scaling the state drives redevelopment -- The pursuit of integration : centrality and isolation in defense conversion -- Financing the deal : leveraging global resources for local conversion -- Conclusion : converting bases in the 21st century.