The Asia-Pacific Journal | Japan Focus Volume 16 | Issue 22 | Number 4 | Article ID 5219 | Nov 15, 2018

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Touring the American empire of bases with the Marines

Richard Tanter and US Marine Corps

Introduction by Richard Tanter1

In the decade after the end of the Cold War,triumphalist U.S. public intellectuals, liberaland conservative alike, were trying on themantle of ‘empire’ for size. For many at thetime, while ‘US imperialism’ denoted kneejerkleftism, ‘the American empire’ might just be anappropriate acknowledgement of achievementon a global scale, an accolade about realityrather than a matter of opprobrium.

As the world knows, that hubris led to threecatastrophic wars of choice and the destructionof Afghanistan and Iraq and the deaths ofhundreds of thousands or more. It also led tothe American historian and political scientist,Chalmers Johnson, long-time Cold Warrior anddoyen of US East Asian specialists, to astonishhis more complaisant professional colleaguesby publishing four extraordinary booksbetween 2001 and his death in 2010 probingthe reality of American empire, together calledthe Blowback series:

B l o w b a c k : T h e C o s t s a n dConsequences of American Empire(2001)

The Sorrows of Empire: Militarism,Secrecy, and the End of theRepublic (2004)

Nemesis: The Last Days of theAmerican Republic (2007)

Dismantling the Empire: America'sLast Best Hope (2010)

Johnson’s political volte face and pathbreakinganalysis of a new form of global empire cameout of his close involvement with Okinawanresistance to one of the most enduring andoppressive ‘peacetime’ expressions of theAmerican empire of bases. Seven decades afterthe US military colonization of Okinawa began,US bases still amount to more than one-fourthof the prefecture’s land area with the strugglecontinuing over construction of a new Marinebase at Henoko. Such is the grotesque weightof American military occupation on Okinawansociety and the consequent deeply–rootedresistance that it is still not possible for even alavishly funded Tokyo-backed conservative tobe elected governor of Okinawa without railingagainst the American bases.

In Nemesis, Johnson summed up the argumentof the second book:

‘The Sorrows of Empire waswritten during the Americanpreparations for and launching ofthe invasions and occupations ofAfghanistan and Iraq. I began tostudy our continuous militarybuildup since World War II and the737 military bases we currentlymainta in in other people 'scountries. This empire of bases isthe concrete manifestation of ourglobal hegemony, and many of theblowback-inducing wars we haveconducted had as their truepurpose the sustaining andexpanding of this network. We donot think of these overseas

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deployments as a form of empire;in fact, most Americans do not givethem any thought at all untilsomething truly shocking, such asthe treatment of prisoners atGuantanamo Bay, brings them toour attention. But the people livingnext door to these bases anddealing with the swaggeringsoldiers who brawl and sometimesrape their women certainly think ofthem as imperial enclaves, just asthe people of ancient Iberia ornineteenth-century India knew thatthey were victims of foreigncolonization.’

Excellent researchers following on fromJohnson have raised the count of US overseasmilitary bases to well beyond 1,000 anddeepened our understanding of technology-dense strategic islands (Ruth Oldenziel) such asDiego Garcia (Vine’s Island of Shame) and therapidly proliferating ‘lilypads’ of notionallylight-footprint ‘temporary’ or ‘rotational force’bases in Africa and Asia of special forces ordrone deployments (Nick Turse).

Counting bases is tricky. The Pentagon’sannual Base Structure Report is essentially areal estate listing of property acreage anddollar value of ‘sites’, and omits small or ‘lowcost’ sites. Its listings of non-US sites include agreat many in Japan, South Korea, and inEurope, but there are no listings at all forAfghanistan and Iraq.

So, how many US bases are there outside theUnited States itself? In 2011, Turse took a stab:

‘There are more than 1,000 U.S.military bases dotting the globe. Tobe specific, the most accuratecount is 1,077. Unless it’s 1,088.Or, if you count differently, 1,169.Or even 1,180. Actually, the

number might even be higher.Nobody knows for sure.’

In 2018? We just do not know. On the onehand, budget sequestration, technologicalchange, and base rationalisation programs mayhave cut the number somewhat. On the otherhand, new wars in East, Central and WestAfr i ca , Yemen and e l sewhere and aproliferation of special operations and dronebases have considerably increased thenumbers. ‘Rotational forces’ – regularscheduled deployments of US forces in ‘host’countries for part of the year on what thePentagon calls ‘permanent rotation’ - alsofudges the issue.

Just this month US Vice-President Mike Penceannounced that the Lombrum Naval Base onPapua-New Guinea’s Manus Island is to beexpanded to become a ‘joint’ PNG-Australian-United States base to counter an increasedChinese regional presence. The Vice-Presidentfollowed this up with a joint announcement thatthe US, Japan, Australia and New Zealandwould fund the electrification of seventypercent of Papua’s area in a move to counterChinese aid programs.

Source: Ben Packham, 'Move to head offChina with Australian base in PNG',

The Australian, 20 September 2018

Yet, excellent and assiduous as these

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researchers are, sometimes the bestrepresentation of Johnson’s argument about theAmerican empire of bases comes from thewords and images published by the UnitedStates military itself.

Such a case is a series of media releases fromthe U.S. Marines a week or so ago, published indozens of newspapers, websites, and televisionprograms around the world to celebrate the243rd birthday of the Marines.

One version appeared on Business InsiderIndia: ‘The US Marine Corps turns 243 today —check out these awesome photos of the DevilDogs in action’, with all words and imagessupplied by the U.S. Marines. This version ofthe article showed marines in action around theworld today: in Syria, Afghanistan, Jordan,Bulgaria, Finland, Sweden, Thailand, Romania– and of course, in Australia.

In reality, these amount to just a smidgeon ofthe 150-plus countries in which, as Nick Tursereported, US special forces – Marines, SEALS,rangers, and so on - operated just between2011 and 2014. The publicity text shows thatthe Darwin-based Marine Rotational Force –itself a part of the Okinawan-based 31st MarineExpeditionary Unit amphibious assault group -has its European counterpart, seen below onexercise in Sweden, Bulgaria and Romania.These countries, with Australia and manyothers, are the compliant hosts to the Americanempire of bases.

‘The US Marine Corps turns 243 today —check out these photos of the Devil Dogs inaction’,

[All photos supplied by US Marine Corps.]

Marines with 3rd Battalion, 11th MarineRegiment, 1st Marine Division fire anM777 Howitzer at known targets duringtraining on August 9, 2018 at MountBundey Training Area in Australia.

Marines fire an 81mm mortar duringtraining in support of Operation InherentResolve in Hajin, Syria on August 4, 2018.

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A US Marine with Marine Rotational Force-Europe 18.1 shoots the Swedish CarlGustaf M4 anti-tank recoilless rifle duringExercise Archipelago Endeavour withSwedish Marines of 1st Marine Regimenton the island of Uto, Harsfjarden, Swedenon Sept. 5, 2018.

Hospital Corpsman Jacob Adam drinkscobra blood at jungle survival trainingduring Exercise Cobra Gold 2018 at CampBan Chan Khrem in the Kingdom ofThailand on Feb. 17, 2018.

Marines with Black Sea Rotational Force18.1 fire an 81mm mortar system duringExercise Platinum Eagle 18 at BabadagTraining Area in Romania on Sept. 5, 2018.

US Marine firefighters and Royal Thaifirefighters work together to put out asimulated aircraft fire during Exercise

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Cobra Gold 2018.

Staff Sgt. Nathaniel McDonald, the motortransport operations chief with CombatLogistics Battalion 3, prepares to sparduring the Marine Corps Martial ArtsInstructors Course’s culmination at MarineCorps Base Hawaii on September 27, 2018.

Cpl. Daniel Hopping, Assaultman, WeaponsCompany, 1st Battalion, 7th MarineRegiment, and a native of Rogers,Arkansas, shields himself from dust beingkicked up from a CH-53E Super Sea

Stallion lifting off during a mission inHelmand province, Afghanistan on April28, 2014.

Marines with Black Sea Rotational Force18.1 advance to their objective during apatrol exercise at U.S. Army Base NovaSelo Forward Operating Site, Bulgaria.

Marines with Maritime Raid Force, 26thMarine Expeditionary Unit swim underwater during dive training in Aqaba,Jordan on July 8, 2018.

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Pfc. Vincent Fiore with Kilo Company, 3rdBattalion, 3rd Marine Regiment fires aLight Anti-Armour Weapon (LAW) duringExercise Bougainville II at the PohakuloaTraining Area on the Island of Hawaii onOct. 20, 2018.

US Navy Petty Officer 1st Class Rey White,an aviation boatswain’s mate handler withthe Essex Amphibious Ready Group (ARG),launches an F-35B Lightning II withMarine Fighter Attack Squadron 211, 13thMarine Expeditionary Unit (MEU), fromthe amphibious assault ship USS Essex(LHD 2), before the F-35B’s first combatstrike on Sept. 27, 2018.

Combat Engineers with the 13th MarineExpeditionary Unit practice breachingtechniques during a live fire demolitionrange at Theatre Amphibious CombatRehearsal (TACR) 18.

A US Marine with 3d Battalion, 7th MarineRegiment, attached to Special PurposeMarine Air-Ground Task Force, CrisisResponse-Central Command, fires ashoulder-fired anti-tank missile at histarget during a live-fire demonstrationnear At Tanf Garrison, Syria on Sept. 7,2018.

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Marines with Marine Rotational Force-Europe move toward their objective duringExercise Winter Sun 18 in Boden, Swedenon March 14, 2018. Marines with Bravo Company, 4th Tanks

Battalion fire a M1A1 Abrams tank duringa low-light live-fire exercise as part ofExercise Arrow 18 in PohjankangasTraining Area near Kankaanpaa, Finlandon May 16, 2018.

Richard Tanter is Senior Research Associate at Nautilus Institute for Security andSustainability and Director of the Nautilus Institute at the Royal Melbourne Institute ofTechnology. An Asia-Pacific Journal contributing editor, he has written widely on Japanesesecurity policy, including 'With Eyes Wide Shut: Japan, Heisei Militarization and the BushDoctrine' in Melvin Gurtov and Peter Van Ness (eds.), Confronting the Bush Doctrine: CriticalViews from the Asia-Pacific. He co-edited, with Gerry Van Klinken and Desmond Ball, Mastersof Terror: Indonesia's Military and Violence in East Timor.

Notes1 A shorter version of this article appeared as ‘Darwin, the Marines, and touring the AmericanEmpire of Bases’ on Pearls & Irritations, 17 November 2018.