David Vine, Base Nation: How U.S. Military Bases Abroad Harm America and the World.

David Vine, Base Nation: How U.S. Military Bases Abroad Harm America and the World. (New York: Metropolitan Books, 2015)

David Vine is professor of anthropology at the Graduate School of New York University. He is also a regular contributor to Tomdispatch. Vine's book, Base Nation, is published a decade after Chalmers Johnson's (1931-2010) trilogy: Blowback: The Cost and Consequences of American Empire (2000); The Sorrows of Empire: Militarism, Secrecy, and the End of the Republic (2004); Nemesis: The Last Days of the American Republic (2006)--ll published by New York: Metropolitan Books.

Both Vine and Johnson would agree that these bases arose seventy years ago after World War II when both the US and USSR were in a Cold War. They both ask the important question, "Why after so many decades is it still necessary to maintain these costly bases, instead of using the funds to repair outworn infrastructures and other life-affirming institutions within America? Besides, modern technology of rapid travel and refueling of fighter jets in midair have made the close proximity to potential crisis regions in the world unnecessary. (The Defense Dept. listed only 800 military bases in more than 70 countries.)

These US military bases are tittle Americas on foreign soil; they require tens of thousand of American troops whom the local populace resented, largely because of the behavior of US male soldiers visiting native prostitutes. and even incidents of raping local women. To cope with the situation, the military decided that families should be allowed in many of these bases to improve their "quality of life." Infrastructures such as movie theaters, swimming pools, golf courses, fast-food industries (Burger King, Pizza Hut, KFC, and others), and PXs (post exchanges) where food, clothing, household items, and auto parts can be purchased at low prices.

These huge bases employed thousands of locals, totaling the population of them to at least a million people-all paid for by American taxpayers to the tune of 100 million of dollars per year to maintain. Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa offered some insight into this phenomenon when he told reporters that he would only renew the lease on the US military base in Ecuador if the US agreed to one condition: "They let us put a base in Miami-an Ecuadorian base." lt is unthinkable to most people in the US to have a foreign base on American soil.

Furthermore, Vine tells about how the US military, in acquiring the "sparsely" populated islands of the Pacific, had to relocate their inhabitants. The military between 1946-1958 acquired the Marshall Islands for testing numerous nuclear bombs including the hydrogen one in 1952 Thousands of the islanders were relocated to other nearby islands only after they were exposed to cancer-causing radiation. (See David Vine's book, Island of Shame: The Secret History of the US Military Base on Diego Garcia. Princeton University Press, 2009.)

Ending in a positive note, Vine is encouraged that a bipartisan coalition of Democrats and Republicans is beginning to question the conventional wisdom of maintaining so many military bases in the world. With US forces still in Afghanistan, Iraq and the Middle East and beyond; they are beginning to ask what is our US military strategy there and how America has become a base nation.

— Review by Franklin J. Woo