Reprinted with permission•Mises Wire•Jacob R. Swartz
For nearly two centuries the United States has been an expansionist power. Though it was the War of 1812 when the U.S. solidified its dominion over the Americas, it was at the twilight of the Spanish-American War when the American Empire finally came of age. The first two decades of the 20th century marked America’s transition — for better or worse — into a global superpower.
By the end of the First World War, the United States had solidified itself as an emerging global power until finally asserting itself as the world’s dominant ascendancy in the aftermath of World War II. From 1945 and over the course of the next fifty years, the U.S.’s sphere of influence would continue to expand its global network of military installations in order to curtail Soviet influence. Now, nearly three decades following the USSR’s collapse, there are still 800 formal U.S. bases across eighty countries worldwide. Not only is this unacceptable, but it is also needlessly wasteful. Since 2001, close to $6 trillion has been spent on wars in Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan alone. The utility of the empire’s foreign military infrastructure is simply not worth the cost required to sustain it; therefore, the number of bases worldwide should be strategically reduced to only those installations that are essential to defending the homeland and protecting international commerce.
Though the USSR no longer threatens liberal hegemony, U.S. foreign policy is still rooted in a Cold War mindset. While an official plan for base realignment and closure was presented in the 1990s under President Bill Clinton, only a select few installations were shut down; most were simply repurposed and assigned to deter other perceived threats to U.S. primacy. However, very few of these installations actually do much to help secure the homeland. In fact, this was not even their original intended purpose! They were designed to defend liberal hegemony, which is no longer the centralized bloc it once was. While American primacy may have made logical sense in the post-war era, in order to halt the spread of communism (although that too has been subject to debate), there is no longer any practical need for the extent of its power to be so expansive.
Today, the single largest concentration of U.S. foreign bases is located within the eurozone, where there exist roughly 300 military installations. Since 1942 the U.S. has maintained a permanent presence in Europe and, after the Second World War, played a significant role in stabilizing the continent, which would go on to serve as the key focal point for NATO. Since then, the EU has become incredibly self-sufficient; the combined European armed forces and nuclear arsenals are more than capable of deterring potential threats without the need for U.S. assistance. Every major European nation is wealthy enough to afford its own defense. It is therefore strategically useless for the U.S. to maintain such a gargantuan military presence in the EU, whose members are already among America’s closest allies.
Having more military bases does not automatically create more deterrence. The U.S. currently has several dozen forward operating bases in the Middle East, hundreds of smaller outposts, and a combined garrison of over 30,000 military personnel. If deterrence were a certainty, then a force of that magnitude would be able to ensure stability in the region. Having more soldiers does not equate to more stability; more likely is that there is a maximum threshold of marginal utility. Depending on how one chooses to define a “military installation,” the U.S. currently has somewhere between four and nine bases in Iraq. In a country that size, having, say, seven bases and nine thousand soldiers is no more effective than having only three bases and three thousand soldiers. The U.S. armed forces possess a far greater technological advantage over other militaries as well. This means that fewer soldiers are thus required for an occupation to be successful. Regarding defense of the homeland, a high-tech defense system would be enough to deter potential aggressors; bases and outposts on islands throughout the Pacific, Arctic and Atlantic oceans would be the only foreign installations needed in order to supplement that.
While the purpose of military occupation is to produce deterrence, such endeavors often have the exact opposite effect in contrast to the intended result. It often makes a population more wary and resentful toward the occupying force. Attempts to exhort hegemony have undermined the sovereignty of some countries, resulting in the rise of reactionary elements that oppose Western influence. The rise of ISIS, for example, was something that happened largely in response to the invasion of Iraq. Additionally, Russia expanded into Georgia and Ukraine partially in retaliation to NATO expansion.
As of 2024, the national debt sits at nearly $35 trillion. The military budget accounts for close to 15% of all U.S. federal spending, and since 2016, over $600 billion has been spent every year on “national defense” alone, making it the largest of all discretionary budgets at nearly 50%. Up to $120 billion of this is spent on the upkeep of foreign bases, and an additional $70 billion on contingency operations. Even if just half of all nonessential U.S. bases were closed, the United States would save billions of dollars — money that would better be allocated toward paying off the national debt, a third of which is owned by foreign entities such as China. If America cannot afford to sustain its own military, then there is no reason for her military to be that large. Unrestrained militarism and high levels of deficit spending have contributed to the demise of countless great powers throughout history. Having a military is important, but it is also important that the U.S. only finance what it can afford; this requires relegating spending to focus on funding only the essentials. The simplest way to start would be by closing foreign bases that are of no importance to national defense.
A common concern among interventionists is that base closure will create power vacuums in unstable regions; this, they argue, leads to more violence and war, especially in the Middle East. A popular belief is that the military does not just deter U.S. adversaries but its allies as well. Without America to keep them in check, it has been argued, nothing would stop even Western-aligned authoritarians from violating human rights or invading other countries. While closing bases in Europe would be an effective means of cutting spending, some argue against doing so, as these bases provide the U.S. military with quick and easy access to Eurasia in case there were ever need for intervention.
Geopolitical primacy is not necessarily a byproduct of military supremacy; in order to remain an influential superpower, all America has to do if she is to remain a powerful world power is to place a primary focus on the defense of its immediate sphere of influence and securing economic interests.
The extent of America’s presence in the Middle East (if anything) would pragmatically best be relegated to only a handful of installations. Finally, the United States European Command’s area of responsibility should be reduced to encompass only a fraction of its current size, both in relation to the number of U.S. bases there are and the percentage of military personnel that are currently stationed in the eurozone. If the U.S. is to maintain a presence at all, there should not be any more soldiers stationed than are needed to sustain a pragmatically formidable presence. Other than that, there is little need to maintain such a vast network of military installations around the world; not only are many of these bases relics of a bygone era, but they are also a serious drain on resources and taxpayer dollars.
The current trajectory of American imperialism is, ironically, counterproductive to the perpetuation of the empire itself. Military supremacy is inherently unsustainable and is an inadequate premise upon which to assert international hegemony. American internationalists would do best to recognize that it can only survive if it is restrained. If America hopes to remain a superpower, it can no longer afford to cannibalize its economy in the name of wanton imperialism.
