Does America Really Need Overseas Bases?
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Even during the Cold War, the service rendered by troops in Europe was more about deterrence and to guarantee U.S. involvement in a conflict, not to be particularly useful in battlefield scenarios.
John Glaser [2]
In the ongoing debate over U.S. grand strategy, one of the key points of discussion is the strategic utility of permanently stationing American forces abroad. Overseas U.S. bases are often thought to be the frontline forces in any outbreak of conflict. We must continue to maintain an indefinite global military base presence, we are told, so that if conflict erupts in any critical region, our forces can get there quickly to stabilize the situation. But a forward-deployed posture has lost much of its operational value in terms of contingency responsiveness.
Even during the Cold War, the service rendered by troops in Europe was more about deterrence and to guarantee U.S. involvement in a conflict, not to be particularly useful in battlefield scenarios. As President Dwight D. Eisenhower once commented [3] in reference to the 1958-59 Berlin crisis, “If resort to arms should become necessary, our troops in Berlin would be quickly overrun, and the conflict would almost inevitably be global war. For this type of war, our nuclear forces were more than adequate.”
Source URL (retrieved on October 17, 2016):
http://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-skeptics/does-america-really-need-overseas-bases-18072
