Base maintenance funds grew three times faster than deployed troop numbers.
Evidence
The process Major Reynolds described is precisely what happened on bases in and around Afghanistan and Iraq. According to a Congressional Research Service report, the Pentagon “built up a far more extensive infrastructure than anticipated to support troops and equipment.” Funds for the operation and maintenance of bases, including food and amenities, grew three times as fast as the number of deployed troops would suggest. — David Vine, Base Nation_ How U.S. Military Bases…, 716
Categorization
Category: Causal Relationships
- XREF: Provides the quantitative payoff to the mechanisms Vine traces elsewhere in Base Nation about mission creep and base expansion.
Related
- Base infrastructure spending grew triple the rate deployment numbers justify (similarity 0.91)
- Base infrastructure spending outpaced troop numbers threefold in Iraq and Afghanistan (similarity 0.90)
- Military bases expand dramatically and accumulate amenities over time (similarity 0.83)
- Even pro-base analysts describe Pentagon construction as an unbounded bureaucratic machine (similarity 0.80)
- Military spending creates fewer jobs per billion than social investments (similarity 0.80)
- Overseas base maintenance costs taxpayers over $100 billion annually (similarity 0.79)
- War-zone base maintenance added roughly eighty billion dollars yearly in 2012 (similarity 0.79)
- Overseas base spending exceeds every federal agency’s budget except Defense. (similarity 0.79)