Host-country power relative to the United States determines base claims’ sincerity

Evidence

As Sergeant Edwards’s admission suggests, the sincerity of such claims depends greatly on the power of a host country relative to the United States, with wealthy nations like Singapore toward one end of a spectrum and Honduras very much at the other. In many of the countries where one finds the smallest category of bases—the lily pads—the hosts often have similarly little power relative to their ostensible guests. — David Vine, Base Nation_ How U.S. Military Bases…, 146

Categorization

• XREF: This power-asymmetry framing of nominal ‘host-country’ ownership connects to broader asymmetric relations literature (e.g., unequal alliances).
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — David Vine, Base Nation_ How U.S. Military Bases…, 146