Lily pad networks reproduce full military capacity while avoiding bases’ visible political costs.

Evidence

Together, this complex of lily pads, exercises, port visits, medical activities, and access agreements means, as Docena says, that the U.S. military now has “everything—and arguably more—than it had in Subic and Clark.” Only now, it has this broad presence “without the economic and political costs of maintaining large garrison-like bases that can serve as visible symbols for the opposition.” — David Vine, Base Nation_ How U.S. Military Bases…, 987

Categorization

• XREF: Directly extends the lily pads concept and its opposition-hiding logic from later chapters about Honduras and small bases.