About this item
From Italy to the Indian Ocean, from Japan to Honduras, a far-reaching examination of the perils of American military bases overseasAmerican military bases encircle the globe. More than two decades after the end of the Cold War, the U.S. still stations its troops at nearly a thousand locations in foreign lands. These bases are usually taken for granted or overlooked entirely, a little-noticed part of the Pentagon's vast operations. But in an eye-opening account, Base Nation shows that the worldwide network of bases brings with it a panoply of ills -- and actually makes the nation less safe in the long run.As David Vine demonstrates, the overseas bases raise geopolitical tensions and provoke widespread antipathy towards the United States. They also undermine American democratic ideals, pushing the U.S. into partnerships with dictators and perpetuating a system of second-class citizenship in territories like Guam. They breed sexual violence, destroy the environment, and damage local economies. And their financial cost is staggering: though the Pentagon underplays the numbers, Vine's accounting proves that the bill approaches $100 billion per year.For many decades, the need for overseas bases has been a quasi-religious dictum of U.S. foreign policy. But in recent years, a bipartisan coalition has finally started to question this conventional wisdom. With the U.S. withdrawing from Afghanistan and ending thirteen years of war, there is no better time to re-examine the tenets of our military strategy. Base Nation is an essential contribution to that debate.
About the Author
David Vine is Professor of political anthropology at American University in Washington, DC. David's newest book, "The United States of War: A Global History of America's Endless Conflicts, from Columbus to the Islamic State," just launched with the University of California Press. "The United States of War" is the third in a trilogy of books about U.S. wars and struggles to make the United States and the world less violent and more peaceful. The other books in the trilogy are "Island of Shame: The Secret History of the U.S. Military Base on Diego Garcia" and "Base Nation: How U.S. Military Bases Abroad Harm America and the World." David's other writing has appeared in the New York Times, Washington Post, Guardian, Politico, Mother Jones, Boston Globe, and the Chronicle of Higher Education, among others. With the Network for Concerned Anthropologists, David has helped write and compile two books: "The Counter-Counterinsurgency Manual or, Notes on Demilitarizing American Society" and "Militarization: A Reader." David is honored to be a board member of the Costs of War Project and a co-founder of the Overseas Base Realignment and Closure Coalition (OBRACC) . He is a contributor to TomDispatch.com and Foreign Policy in Focus. As a believer in the importance of public education systems (apologies to American University) , David is proud to have received his PhD and MA degrees from the City University of New York's Graduate Center. There, David developed an approach to a holistic anthropology that attempts to combine the best of anthropology, history, political science, economics, sociology, and psychology. All royalties from David's books and all speaker honoraria are donated to the exiled Chagossian people and to non-profit organizations serving veterans and other victims of war. David feels at home in many places but has lived for much of his life in New York City, Oakland, and the Washington, DC area, where he was briefly a dancing waiter. See davidvine.net and basenation.us for more information.
