Okinawa bases protect the Marine Corps from existential budget scrutiny
Evidence
The Marine Corps also hasn’t wanted to give up Okinawa because in recent years many marines have feared for the service’s very existence. During the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the Marine Corps has fought much like the Army. The Marines’ last amphibious landing was more than half a century ago, in the Korean War, leading many to question why the military has an amphibious armed service that’s effectively a second army. Giving up bases in Okinawa, and with them the idea that the Marines are necessary to maintain peace in East Asia, would mean the Marine Corps could lose one of its three main combat divisions. “The Marines are so afraid because if the decision is made to move them,” explained the former Pentagon official Ray DuBois, the next decision may be “that those marines will disappear.” Losing some of the total marine troop strength would mean losing money in the Pentagon budget, raising more questions about whether the service needs to exist at all. Even the idea proposed by some senators of relocating marines from Futenma to available space at the Air Force’s Kadena Air Base is anathema to the Marine Corps, given that such a move would cede power to another of the armed services. — David Vine, Base Nation_ How U.S. Military Bases…, 886
Categorization
- XREF: Bureaucratic self-preservation driving base policy connects to the reader’s core thesis about bases harming US interests
- SEED: Angle for an essay: inter-service rivalry and base politics — Okinawa as turf war between the Marine Corps and Air Force