Suchergebnisse

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.

Anti-U.S. base protests, played out in parliaments and the streets of host nations, continue to arise in different parts of the world. In a novel approach, this book examines the impact of anti-base movements and the important role bilateral alliance relationships play in shaping movement outcomes. The author explains not only when and how anti-base movements matter, but also how host governments balance between domestic and international pressure on base-related issues. Drawing on interviews with activists, politicians, policy makers and U.S. base officials in the Philippines, Japan (Okinawa), Ecuador, Italy and South Korea, the author finds that the security and foreign policy ideas held by host government elites act as a political opportunity or barrier for anti-base movements, influencing their ability to challenge overseas U.S. basing policies

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.

Great Power Competition for Overseas Bases: The Geopolitics of Access Diplomacy explores the geopolitics of the major powers' overseas basing systems in relation to global strategies and changes in the international system in three fairly distinct phases: the interwar, early postwar, and recent postwar periods. This book links the great powers' competition for overseas bases to several streams of more or less contemporary international relations theory. This monograph consists of seven chapters and opens with an introduction to the diplomacy of basing access, followed by a discussion on the different types or purposes of basing access as they have evolved over the past several decades in response to changes in diplomacy and military technology. The major powers' overseas basing-access networks in the consecutive interwar, early postwar, and recent postwar periods are then reviewed, along with the earlier corpus of geopolitical theory, specifically as it relates to basing diplomacy. Emphasis is on the conflicting assumptions about what reciprocal strategic advantages and disadvantages inhere to the geographic positions of the United States and USSR. The final chapter considers a number of ""functional"" areas of world politics that are closely intertwined with basing diplomacy, and relates the competition for facilities to raw materials access, surrogate wars, strategic deterrence, arms control, balances of payments, arms sales and aid, alliances, and other such staple concerns of international relations. This book will be of interest to political scientists, military and government officials, diplomats, and policymakers.

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.