Lily pads quietly expand US military reach into new conflict zones.

Evidence

More broadly, the lily pad strategy is a critical part of what many are calling a “new way of war” for the United States, aimed at maintaining U.S. global dominance amid growing economic and geopolitical competition from China, the European Union, and rising powers such as Russia and India. The days of hundreds of bases and hundreds of thousands of U.S. forces occupying Iraq and Afghanistan may be over, but the development of lily pad bases in places such as Honduras, the Philippines, and Niger is a warning that—whether we realize it or not—the military is increasingly inserting itself into new areas of the world and into new conflicts, with potentially disastrous consequences. — David Vine, Base Nation_ How U.S. Military Bases…, 955

Categorization

• SEED: Potential article angle: how the ‘lily pad’ strategy amounts to a slimmer but still global US military footprint that bypasses congressional and public scrutiny.