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A Pentagon Lily-Pad?
By maudeaster on 2012-07-26 11:56:05
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What is a Pentagon lily-pad? Think lily-pad and imagine a peaceful pond dotted with gently floating flowers.
But that’s totally misleading — the Pentagon’s developing system of “lily-pads” actually reflects the emergence across
the world of a whole new generation of US military bases. Not satisfied with the existing network of over 1000 US
military installations around the world, the Pentagon is rapidly setting up more bases, many of them small and in regions
where the US has not previously maintained a military presence. These bases, the drone program, and the Navy’s “afloat
forward-staging bases”, (sea-borne launching pads for US military action in areas where our land bases are not welcome) are
the new face of US warfare and are expanding largely out of our view. I highly recommend an eye-opening article on this
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base expansion by David Vine, The Lily-Pad Strategy: How the Pentagon is Quietly Transforming Its
states-way-of-war.html. We need to pay attention, because despite the public antipathy right now to expensive US wars,
resulting in the slow draw-downs in Iraq and Afghanistan and much political talk about cuts to the military budget, the US is
actually setting itself up to act quickly, with or without invitation, to intervene in other countries’ affairs from Africa to Latin
America, from Asia to Eastern Europe. The questions for me are:
e¢ Why should the US think it has the right to position its military forces all over the world to interfere in other
countries’ affairs? US bases don’t encourage negotiation of local conflicts — they encourage conflict expansion. And
intervention by foreign forces naturally causes resentment, with our bases historically sources of not only conflict
casualties, but also environmental degradation and sexual exploitation of the local community.
e What is going to keep military activity from these bases from sucking the US into expanded full-blown wars?
There are 16 African countries now with new US military bases or bases under exploration. There are now 13 Latin
American countries where the US either has bases or has funded local bases capable of hosting US forces. The
Chinese approach to global influence is expanding economic relationships in Africa and Latin America. How sad that
the US thinking is trapped in the need to dominate militarily.
¢ Ina democracy, why don’t we have a say about this military expansion? Shouldn’t Congress provide full public
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debate about the potential consequences of costly and dangerous new military involvements?
For another thoughtful discussion of the impact of US bases, I recommend Nicholas Kristof’s The Big (Military) Taboo,
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/26/opinion/26kristof.html . As he points out, “If you’re carrying an armload of hammers,
every problem looks like a nail. The truth is that military power often isn’t very effective at solving modern problems, like a
nuclear North Korea or an Iran that is on the nuclear path. Indeed, in an age of nationalism, our military force is often
counterproductive.” As Congress debates military budget cuts before and after the elections, let’s put restraint of this so far
undebated base expansion on the agenda!
