Little America bases insulate troops and transform host-nation culture and economies

Evidence

Foreign soil or not, places like Ramstein tend to resemble insulated, self-contained small American towns that allow their inhabitants to hardly ever leave the base. These Little Americas have become both a symbol of American life and an exaggerated version of it. In many ways they resemble gated communities, with sprawling grounds, shopping malls, fast food, golf, and a car-based lifestyle. (Service members get their cars shipped overseas free of charge, and gasoline is heavily subsidized.) These “simulacrums of suburbia,” as the architecture professor and former Air Force officer Mark Gillem calls them, subtly and not so subtly shape life around them, presenting the host nation with their particular vision of American culture and transforming local economies to reflect the consumption habits of U.S. troops. — David Vine, Base Nation_ How U.S. Military Bases…, 112

Categorization

Category: Causal Relationships

• XREF: The gated-community framing relates to the reader’s work on how bases replicate American suburban life on foreign soil, insulating occupants from local reality.

Related

• Overseas bases operate as insulated self-contained American towns (similarity 0.94)
• Little America bases function as gated simulacrums of American suburbia that reshape host economies (similarity 0.85)
• The arrival of families forced the military to build self-contained American-style towns on bases. (similarity 0.83)
• Little America bases normalized permanent overseas troop presence as legitimate. (similarity 0.83)
• Self-contained family base communities normalized and legitimized permanent overseas occupation (similarity 0.83)
• Self-contained base amenities keep troop spending from reaching host economies. (similarity 0.81)
• Family arrivals pushed the military to build self-contained Little Americas (similarity 0.81)
• The militarized suburban base lifestyle originated as a 1940s response to occupation tensions (similarity 0.79)
• Small military outposts advance U.S. business and deepen host-country dependence. (similarity 0.78)
• U.S. bases abroad are walled enclaves of plenty amid surrounding poverty (similarity 0.78)