Outsourced base construction began during the Vietnam War through Brown & Root

Evidence

Once upon a time, the military, not contractors, built and ran U.S. bases. Soldiers, sailors, marines, airmen, and airwomen built the barracks, cleaned the clothes, and peeled the potatoes. But this started changing during the Vietnam War, when Brown & Root began building major military installations in South Vietnam as part of a contractor consortium. Brown & Root enjoyed deep ties with President Lyndon Johnson dating back to the 1930s, leading to well-founded suspicions that Johnson personally steered contracts to the company. — David Vine, Base Nation_ How U.S. Military Bases…, 680

Categorization

Category: Causal Relationships

Related

• Contractor-run base construction began in the Vietnam War era. (similarity 0.92)
• Contractors usually outsource base services at higher cost than the military itself (similarity 0.82)
• Brown & Root received $2 billion in 1990s base support contracts. (similarity 0.80)
• Base-generated contract dollars largely return to American and offshore corporations, not hosts. (similarity 0.78)

Broader Connections

• Wars in Korea and Vietnam drove repeated expansions of the overseas base network #exemplifies (0.70) — David Vine, Base Nation_ How U.S. Military Bases…, 97
• Outsourcing passed military labor needs to foreign contractors paid far less #expands (0.50)