Base-generated contract dollars largely return to American and offshore corporations, not hosts.

Evidence

As we have seen, most U.S. taxpayer money goes to construction, the procurement of goods, and the daily operation, maintenance, and repair of bases. In Germany, some of these U.S. contracts go to German companies—but many do not. Instead, they often go to U.S.-based firms. (For fiscal year 2015, Congress placed significant restrictions on awarding large contracts to foreign companies.) Sometimes U.S. firms subcontract to local businesses, but in either case, the vast majority of contract dollars goes to large corporations. As we have seen, out of an estimated $385 billion the Pentagon paid between 2001 and 2013 to private companies for work done abroad, about one third went to the top ten recipients—companies like former Halliburton subsidiary KBR and other major military contractors such as DynCorp, ITT/Exelis, and the oil giant BP. This means that much of the money generated by bases flows out of local communities to company headquarters (and, not infrequently, to various offshore banking havens). The trend is particularly pronounced in Okinawa, where much of the money flowing from the U.S. presence has gone to Tokyo-based construction companies rather than Okinawan businesses. — David Vine, Base Nation_ How U.S. Military Bases…, 919

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the book’s broader thesis that bases function as transfer mechanisms enriching US contractors rather than local or American workers broadly.