You won’t hear it put this way by anyone in Washington, but the main reason cuts to the defense budget are worrying officials is that they make it more difficult to police the world. In Foreign Affairs, Michael O’Hanlon and Bruce Riedel suggest a cost-saving measure for America’s empire in the Middle East: opening more U.S. military bases in the region. Instead of relying as it has on expensive “aircraft carriers in and near the Persian Gulf,” the U.S. should move its military presence back onto land in at least three different Gulf states. The primary purpose of having U.S. military bases peppered throughout the Middle East has traditionally been to exert control over geo-politically vital oil-rich countries and to allow for a rapid and coordinated use of military force at Washington’s command. As a Top Secret National Security Council briefing put it in 1954, “the Near East is of great strategic, political, and economic importance,” as it “contains the greatest petroleum resources in the world” as well as “essential locations for strategic military bases in any world conflict.”
Posted on: Sat, 13 Jul 2013 11:49:30 +0000
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