Is 800 U.S. military bases in foreign countries a weakness or a strength? From Jacob G. Hornberger at fff.org:
CNN is reporting that “gigantic” waves “swamped a key military facility in the middle of the Pacific Ocean last weekend.” The rush of water, which can be seen here, occurred on Roi-Namur Island, which is part of Kawajalein Atoll, “which hosts a US military ballistic defense test site in the Republic of the Marshall Islands.”
But that big wave raises an important question? Why does the U.S. government need an empire of foreign military bases? Unfortunately, hardly anyone asks that question. A vast worldwide empire of foreign military bases has become an accepted and integral part of American life. We’ve all grown up under this empire and so it’s just considered to be normal.
A U.S. Navy vessel in the Marshall Islands.
But it’s anything but normal, at least not compared to our nation’s original founding governmental system, which eschewed large, permanent military establishments and rejected, fully and completely, the concept of a worldwide military empire.
According to this article by David Vine, associate professor of sociology at American University and author of Base Nation: How U.S. Military Bases Abroad Harm America and the World, as of 2015 the United States maintained “nearly 800 military bases in more than 70 countries and territories abroad.”
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There was this place called Rome that had all of these garrisons but it didn’t matter as the Barbarians had already crashed the gates.
We can’t even go to the Green Zone or base PX (MIL Wal-Mart) so what is the point? (/s)
You and I know why the Byzantine Empire or Rome II East is hardly ever mentioned. (wink)