First-round base funding becomes a slippery slope to much larger costs

Evidence

Under the guise of a communications station, in other words, the Navy was asking for the nucleus of a much larger base, with a design that allowed for ready restoration of previously envisioned base elements. Although the Navy usually characterized the base as “limited” or “modest,” officials always had grander visions for a large harbor, an airfield, and a coordination center for submarines patrolling the Indian Ocean. As one Navy official put it, “The communications requirements cited as justification are fiction.” Before Diego Garcia was even operational, officials were already planning to ask Congress for more money to expand. And expand it did, as Diego Garcia became a billion-dollar base within a decade. At other base locations, too, once the military overcomes initial congressional opposition, the first round of MilCon funding often becomes a slippery slope to much larger expenditures. — David Vine, Base Nation_ How U.S. Military Bases…, 774

Categorization

Category: Causal Relationships

• XREF: The ‘feet in the door / slippery slope’ funding dynamic also appears in infrastructure and foreign-aid literature — an institutional incentive structure beyond the military.
• SEED: An essay angle: ‘bait-and-switch budgeting’ as a general pattern — from military bases to bridges to tech projects — where initial approval is obtained under one justification and then quietly expanded.

Related

• MilCon funding acts as a slippery slope toward far larger base expenditures. (similarity 0.93)
• The Navy disguised a major base as a $17.8 million communications facility (similarity 0.82)
• The Navy disguised Diego Garcia base construction as a communications facility (similarity 0.80)
• Small temporary bases routinely grow into large permanent ones with rising costs. (similarity 0.79)

Broader Connections

• Lease-construction contracts shift base construction costs onto future Congresses. #expands (0.70)