Suchergebnisse

Political change and the overseas American military presence -- Overseas military basing agreements : issues and methodology -- The Philippines and Spain : in the shadow of the dictator -- South Korea and Turkey : from common defense to political uncertainty -- Okinawa and the Azores : island hosts and triangular politics -- Japan and Italy : the politics of clientelism and one-party democratic rule -- Central Asia and the global defense posture review : new bases, old politics -- Conclusion : America's past and future base politics

International audience ; The purpose of this paper is to assess the projection of the US military establishment on French sports culture during the Cold War, when American soldiers were stationed in army bases across the country. After World War I, the War Department agreed to assist private organizations in setting up sporting events – especially basketball games and tournaments – to keep up army morale. But after World War II, from the onset of the Cold War until the 1960s, times were harder for the GIs in France: in rural areas, where US military bases were located, their presence was often contested and led to important disputes over issues of culture, sovereignty and national defence. As a consequence, France became the setting of drastically changing US military diplomacy in Europe, orchestrated by the Department of Defense, in cooperation with the United States Information Services (USIS), a network established by the State Department in the postwar years.As we intend to demonstrate, the entire US cultural diplomacy network revolved around the needs of the military stationed in France. Sport, and especially basketball, was pivotal in the political promotion of American culture to the French. In 1954, the failure of the European Defense Community led to a change in public diplomacy objectives: the fear of European dislocation was partly countered by better planning of sporting events organized both on and outside the bases. This paper is set at the crossroads of political and cultural history, will introduce original USIS, NATO and French archives as well as some oral history interviews. It analyses two promotional events – the Armed Forces Day and the GI Basketball All-Star Game, which took place on Chambley Air Base in the mid-1950s – and attempts at showing how specific cultural reflexes were eventually passed on to the French.

Intro -- Contents -- Foreword by LAWRENCE KORB -- Preface -- Introduction -- Chapter 1 The Military Base Structure in the United States -- Chapter 2 Base Closure: Reasons and Consequences -- Chapter 3 The Base Closure Process -- Chapter 4 The 2005 BRAC Round -- Chapter 5 Closing Overseas Military Bases -- Chapter 6 Summary and Conclusions -- Appendix I Base Profiles -- Ingleside Naval Station, Texas -- Fort Monroe, Virginia -- Ellsworth AFB, South Dakota -- Submarine Base New London, CT -- Naval Air Station Oceana -- Fleet and Industrial Supply Center, Oakland, California -- Lowry AFB, Colorado -- Birmingham International Airport Air Guard Station, Alabama -- Fort Devens, Massachusetts -- Clark Air Base -- Appendix II Major Active Military Bases by State, 1988 and 2006 -- Appendix III Major Base Closures by State and by Year -- Appendix IV List of Major Bases Closed by Year: 1988-2005 -- Appendix V Civilian Jobs Impact of Four BRAC Rounds -- Appendix VI BRAC 2005 Chronology of Events -- Glossary of Terms -- Bibliography -- Index.

The U.S. Department of Defense has closed 128 domestic bases over the last 30 years through the Base Realignment and Closure Process. Current scholarship describes this process and provides snapshots of transition, yet there is very little systematic knowledge of what follows base closure. We introduce an original data set chronicling military base redevelopment and present evidence suggesting that the variation in the built environment on former military bases stems from considerations somewhat unique to military redevelopment, particularly the presence of federal funding, contamination of redevelopment parcels, and economic output in the surrounding county. Our arguments offer new directions for redevelopment scholarship and a first step for developing best practices to help cities redevelop mothballed bases.