When President Joe Biden entered office determined to “build back better,” few would have thought that construction in Papua New Guinea would help define his legacy. An agreement the Biden Administration signed in June means the Southeast Asian country will soon host six new U.S. military bases.
While Biden’s investments to slow the rapidly heating climate look relatively impressive compared with past Presidents, his administration has gone on a building spree overseas: Australia, Estonia, Germany, Great Britain, Guam, Italy, Japan, Latvia, Lithuania, the Marshall Islands, Micronesia, the Northern Mariana Islands, Norway, Palau, the Philippines, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Somalia, Spain, and Taiwan have seen a buildup of some combination of U.S. military bases, forces, and weaponry.
Biden has given new life to a long-outdated World War II-era strategy of deploying hundreds of U.S. military bases and hundreds of thousands of U.S. troops outside the United States. Even more than his predecessors, the President has embraced this “forward strategy” in a flawed attempt to hold onto U.S. global dominance amid China’s rapid rise.
Contrary to its name, the forward strategy is a backward one that’s escalating dangerous military tensions and new cold wars with China and Russia, increasing the risk of a direct—potentially nuclear—war. The strategy is also harming people worldwide and wasting tens of billions of taxpayer dollars annually.
Biden could choose another path. Rather than doubling down on post-9/11 endless war and endangering his domestic agenda and the planet, his administration could create a legacy overseas matching that at home. Rather than building up bases and troops, the President could be building up embassies and diplomats to advance diplomacy, end conflicts, and build global cooperation. He could be addressing humanity’s existential threats, including climate change and nuclear weapons.
So why is the government adding six new bases in Papua New Guinea?
Bases in Papua New Guinea are the latest products of the forward strategy that has been a quasi-religious dogma of mainstream U.S. foreign policy since the 1940s. What’s better understood as the “Empire of Bases” strategy—given how empires throughout history have used foreign bases to exert power—says the United States must encircle the globe with bases and troops to maintain national security.
Thanks to a nearly unquestioned adherence to the Empire of Bases doctrine, the government has spent hundreds of billions of dollars since World War II building a collection of foreign bases larger than any in world history.
Thanks to a near-unquestioned adherence to the Empire of Bases doctrine, the government has spent hundreds of billions of dollars since World War II building a collection of foreign bases larger than any in world history. Since taking office, Biden has added dozens of installations to a preexisting collection of around 750 bases in eighty countries. Compare that to the State Department’s 275 embassies, consulates, and other foreign sites. The taxpayer bill now nears $100 billion for bases and troops abroad; the State Department’s budget is $58 billion.
Other countries have foreign bases, but they pale compared to the U.S. network. Britain, Russia, France, and the rest of the world’s militaries have around 100–200 foreign bases combined. China has nine.
Before Papua New Guinea, the Biden Administration signed a deal in February to occupy four new bases in the Philippines, a former U.S. colony.
In Australia, the administration negotiated “major force posture initiatives” to expand U.S. bases and forces down under in the 2021 AUKUS (Australia-United Kingdom-United States) agreement selling nuclear-powered submarines to Australia (potentially violating the nuclear nonproliferation treaty).
Elsewhere in Asia, the Biden Administration has continued a multi-billion-dollar base buildup aimed at China, in Guam, Japan, the Marshall Islands, Micronesia, the Northern Mariana Islands, and Palau.
In Europe, Biden has used Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine as an excuse to expand the U.S. military’s presence. When that war started last year, the Pentagon had around 300 bases in Europe. The Pentagon has since deployed at least 20,000 additional forces and expanded U.S. bases in the Baltics, Britain, Germany, Italy, Norway, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, and Spain. As I write this, officials are nearing an agreement with new NATO member Finland to allow U.S. bases near Russia’s northern border. Installations in Sweden could be next.
As in Asia, the European buildup is an economic and political strategy as much as a military one. Following the U.S.-led catastrophe in Afghanistan, Putin’s war has allowed Biden to unite and expand NATO, transform the alliance into an anti-China force, deepen Europe’s dependence on the United States and a U.S.-led capitalist system, and line up billions of dollars in new weapons contracts for the military-industrial complex.
The Empire of Bases strategy means that tens of billions of dollars are wasted annually on military infrastructure overseas when domestic infrastructure is crumbling, national debt has reached historic highs, and money is urgently needed for health, education, housing, and the environment.
The strategy has frequently been a counterproductive failure. In Africa, for example, a multi-billion-dollar base and troop buildup has seen a dramatic growth in militant groups on the continent, nine coups launched by U.S.-trained forces, and support for authoritarian governments.
This is no aberration. Worldwide, U.S. bases are located in nearly 40 nondemocratic countries.
Even in relatively democratic countries, U.S. bases have a well-documented record of harming (and angering) locals: causing environmental damage, forced displacement, crime, and accidents, while fueling exploitative prostitution industries.
Empire of Bases strategy proponents often defend bases abroad by pointing to their economic benefits. This is a disingenuous distraction. Military bases shouldn’t be jobs programs.
If the U.S. government’s aim really was to support overseas economies, there are more effective ways. While some local businesses and base employees benefit, the benefits have been greatly exaggerated.
Empire of Bases supporters employ specious economic arguments because there’s so little evidence to support the main argument for the status quo: that bases abroad “deter” enemies from aggression.
This argument would be comical if its consequences weren’t so deadly. U.S. bases abroad have been overwhelmingly offensive, not defensive. Since World War II, U.S. overseas bases have made it easier for U.S. leaders to launch disastrous offensive wars, from Vietnam to Afghanistan and Iraq to Libya, Somalia, and far beyond. U.S. Army-funded research shows that, since the 1950s, U.S. bases abroad are associated with U.S. forces initiating military conflicts.
Foreign bases are meant to threaten, and foreign leaders rightly perceive them that way. The buildup of U.S. and NATO bases closer and closer to Russia’s borders, accompanying NATO’s expansion since the Soviet Union’s collapse, clearly did not deter Russia from invading Ukraine. Instead, these bases increased the threat to Russia, encouraging a military response, as many predicted.
How would U.S. politicians and the public respond if Russia or China built a single base near U.S. borders? Consider the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962, when a Soviet base in Cuba led to a U.S. response that nearly resulted in global nuclear war.
Few realize that Biden is undermining his own progress against humanity’s other existential threat—climate change—by boosting spending on the world’s largest institutional carbon user—the U.S. military—and encouraging expanded carbon use by the militaries of allies, as well as China and Russia.
Few realize that Biden is undermining his own progress against humanity’s other existential threat—climate change—by boosting spending on the world’s largest institutional carbon user—the U.S. military.
People in the United States know we can choose another, better path. According to a 2023 American Friends Service Committee/Harris Poll, more than two-thirds of adults want diplomacy with China to reduce tensions. Rather than bases, the government must build lasting security infrastructures based on arms treaties and conflict resolution to end the war in Ukraine, prevent a war over Taiwan, and resolve other territorial disputes. Biden’s Build Back Better agenda must build global cooperation to advance green infrastructure, pandemic preparedness, refugee resettlement, and more.
The President can reverse course to stop new base construction and close obsolete existing infrastructure. This would show strength and confidence in the power of the U.S. military and its allies and reflect actual Chinese and Russian threats.
Thankfully, people across the political spectrum—even in the U.S. military—are concluding that many bases abroad should have closed decades ago. Presidents George H.W. Bush, George W. Bush, and Bill Clinton closed hundreds. Congressmembers should support closures to return thousands of military personnel and family members—plus their paychecks—to their states.
This is no recipe for isolationism. “Draw Down/Build Up” should be the mantra—draw down bases abroad in careful consultation with allies, bring troops and families home, and build up embassies and diplomats, diplomacy, and cooperation overseas.
Changing course will require strength rarely seen from U.S. Presidents. Citizens and courageous politicians must demand such strength to overcome the embedded Empire of Bases dogma among those profiting from the status quo, including base contractors, the elite foreign policy “Blob,” and the broader military-industrial complex.
If we don’t change course, the legacy of Biden’s base buildup likely will be the advent of wars even more catastrophic than the post-9/11 conflicts—most terrifyingly with nuclear-armed China or Russia—catastrophic bankruptcy, or both.