Lily pads provide redundancy so base denial by one host can be bypassed

Evidence

Thanks to lily pads’ low costs, many military planners also like the idea of building new bases in as many nations as possible—what the Pentagon calls “redundant capabilities and access.” With a big collection of small bases joining a smaller number of main operating bases like Ramstein and Camp Humphreys in South Korea, planners hope “to respond rapidly to crises and contingencies anywhere in the world” by turning from one country to another if a host denies use of a U.S. base in wartime (as Turkey and other European countries did to varying degrees in the lead-up to the second invasion of Iraq in 2003). Maintaining larger numbers of bases also increases the challenge for any potential adversary who wants to target American bases in wartime. And the relatively low costs of lily pads mean that if a host country ever evicts one, the financial damage is far smaller than the losses at bases like Clark and Subic Bay. — David Vine, Base Nation_ How U.S. Military Bases…, 953