BY MADHAVEE INAMDAR
The United States decided to use the 9/11 tragedy to reorganise the world. It has military bases on every continent. The largest of these is situated in one of the tiniest states: Qatar in the Persian Gulf. There are 189 member states of the United Nations; the globe's only superpower maintains a military presence in 140, including significant deployments in 25 countries. It has security arrangements with at least 36 countries.
Empires throughout history have relied on foreign military bases to enforce their rule. US forces are active in the biggest range of countries since the Second World War. The aim is to provide platforms from which to launch attacks on any group perceived by President George Bush to be a "danger" to US interests. According to defence analysts, the intention is to have a host of forward bases — staffed by a few thousand troops and technicians all year round — that can provide support for huge reinforcements when required.
At the latest count, there are more than 200,000 US troops (half in the Asia-Pacific region) on foreign soil and more than 50,000 personnel afloat in foreign waters. In recent years, an average of 35,000 of these personnel have been involved in contingency operations, mostly around Iraq and in the Balkans. Aside from these, the US maintains more than 800 foreign military installations, including 60 major ones.
Many current US bases were acquired after previous wars — from the Second World War through to the war in Afghanistan. Bases obtained in one war are seen as forward deployment positions for some future war, often involving an entirely new enemy. The Bush administration says publicly that it will leave its new Central Asian bases after the "war on terrorism" is over, but privately officials admit they are there to stay. As well as bases, the US is sending in military advisers to a host of countries.
New US military bases in the Middle East were established during the 1990-91 Gulf War, most notably in Saudi Arabia, where thousands of US troops have been stationed for more than a decade. The 1990s closed with US military intervention in the Balkans and extensive US support for counterinsurgency operations in South America as part of "Plan Colombia".
Military doctrine insists that the strategic significance of a foreign military base goes beyond the war in which it was acquired, and that planning for other potential missions using these new assets must begin almost immediately. For this reason, the build-up of bases in Afghanistan, Pakistan and three of the former Soviet republics of Central Asia is inevitably seen by Russia and China as constituting additional threats to their security. Russia has already indicated its displeasure at the prospect of permanent US military bases in Central Asia.
Indeed, the establishment of new bases may in the long-run be more critical to US war planners than the wars themselves. US military interventions cannot all be tied to the insatiable US thirst for oil even though many of the recent wars do have their roots in oil politics.
The new US military bases, and Washington's increasing control over oil supplies, can be tied to the historical shift taking place since the 1980s: the rise of the "euro bloc" and "yen bloc", with US economic power perhaps on the wane. But in military affairs, the US is still the unquestioned superpower. It has been projecting that military dominance into new strategic regions as a future counterweight to its economic competitors, to create a military-backed "dollar bloc" as a wedge geographically situated between its major competitors.
[Madhavee Inamdar is based in Vancouver, where she is a researcher in peace and conflict studies.]
From 91×ÔÅÄÂÛ̳ Weekly, January 29, 2003.
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