Growing Network of US Military Bases & the Rise in Number of Conflicts Around the World
In just over two years, the Americans have established about 20 new military bases around the world and managed to “democratically” overthrow about a dozen governments inimical to their interests. This did not bring forth the promised peace: there were more new conflicts in 2001–03 than during the height of the Cold War. (This article was written in 2003–04)
Writing in The World in 2000[1], the UN Secretary General Kofi Annan declared that conflicts around the world had subsided vastly and that there were fewer than six new conflicts that year. In less than two years, that has changed. There are more conflicts in the world now than it was at the height of the Cold War. Every month witnesses new battle lines being drawn than before. What makes the trend even more disturbing is the fact that in every new conflict the US involvement is brazen and deliberate. Ever since the invasion of Afghanistan, US has established at least 13 new military bases in the countries surrounding it and has publicly threatened to attack 60 more countries using its right to preemptive strikes. According to the Defense Department, “The United States military is currently deployed to more locations than it has been throughout history.” According to the Department’s annual Base Structure Report for fiscal year 2003, which itemizes foreign and domestic US military real estate, the Pentagon currently owns or rents 702 overseas bases in about 130 countries and has another 6,000 bases in the United States and its territories. The report does not include the bases in Kosovo, Afghanistan, Iraq, Israel, Kuwait, Kyrgyzstan, Qatar, and Uzbekistan. Plus more than a dozen bases are not listed due to political reasons. The US bases around the world extend over 30 million acres, making the Department of Defense, the world’s largest landlord.
In all, the US has a military presence in nearly 60 countries. Even then, this figure doesn’t include the vast network of surveillance installations nor does it include the ‘military access agreements’ or ‘status of forces agreements’ the US has signed with nearly 100 countries. These agreements define the legal status of US service personnel serving abroad. Infamously, they typically give the United States jurisdiction over offenses committed by personnel “carrying out official duty”. So it is always possible for American soldiers accused of raping Korean or Japanese girls to get away with token punishments. But the focus of these agreements is to provide legal protection to the US forces engaged in provoking terrorist attacks which would then require “counter-attack” by both the militaries of the host country and the US.
Conflicts, which had long subsided, saw a sudden revival in 2002. Short wars with increased intensity and higher casualties erupted in Liberia, Ivory Coast, Nigeria, Algeria, Georgia, Philippines, Indonesia, Central Asia and the Caucasus. Ever since early 1990s, US arms sales exceeded those of all other nations combined. Global military expenditure by governments is estimated at $1 trillion annually, and that doesn’t take into account illicit arms trafficking to non-governmental belligerents. For every four weapons involved in such trafficking, three are estimated to come from the United States, many of them originally via aid or credits. Between 1985 and 1995, the belligerent parties in forty-five conflicts around the globe obtained $42 billion worth of weapons from the United States. This rose to $98 billion in the early 2000s. In 90 percent of the fifty most significant conflicts in 1993–94, one or more parties received U.S. weapons or military technology. Through trafficking, arms sales, and military aid, the United States helps keep dozens of civil wars and other armed conflicts around the world alive and kicking.
Bush has scrapped the war crimes provisions of the International Criminal Court and the anti-ballistic missile treaty. He has said he will use nuclear weapons against non-nuclear states “if necessary”. Governments which were antagonistic to US’s policies were swiftly replaced by mass protests engineered by US intelligence agencies. Over half the world’s population is governed by US educated national leaders and military chiefs. The issue for these “elected leaders” is not primarily the brutality of modern imperial dominion, but how “bad” their enemies are. Victories in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the ensuing weak resistance in these countries, have strengthened US’s ties with its despot allies around the world. In the wake of the Iraq victory, the US threatened withdrawing virtually all of its forces from Saudi Arabia and Turkey, as a ‘punishment’ for not supporting the war strongly enough. The US government even succeeded in sending troops to countries where they had previously faced public outrage. The US forces were sent under the guise of training the national armies in their fight against political rebels, and after the conclusion of the “training period” they were asked to stay and assist with infrastructure projects[2]. Where there isn’t a war on ‘terror’, the US administration is relying on the war on drugs to justify more bases.
The bases around the world have now taken up the role of small fundamentalist towns in the American Bible Belt. American soldiers are no longer merely terrestrial combatants; they have become missionaries. They are no longer simply killing enemies; they are casting out demons. This has now become an American crusade where winning wars is just a formality. As General Myers, the US chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, had once said, “the goal has never been to get Bin Laden” (AP, April 5 2002). Terrorism or not, more military bases are needed to meet US’s geopolitical objectives.
Freedom and democracy, labeled and sold by the Americans, is beginning to yield results: between 1993 and 2001, there were only five major al-Qaeda attacks worldwide; in the two years since then there have been seventeen such bombings. Last year witnessed more than 12 new conflict zones emerging — all were against governments which were backed by the Americans or the west. The case for ‘preventive war’ has gone too far with military dictatorships and weak dependencies vying for US military aid. The years ahead will witness more upheavals — against governments first and, if the US decides to implement its plan, then, between nations, in Asia, Africa and Latin America. In any case, the US has a full-time job on its hands — gun-running and peace-keeping. Both require more US troops.
[1] The Economist, UK
[2] Office of the Coordinator for Counterterrorism (April 30, 2003), US Department of State
