Overseas bases are among the least contested policies in American politics

Evidence

Two decades after the Soviet Union’s collapse, in a world without another superpower rival, people across the political spectrum still believe as a matter of faith that overseas bases and troops are essential to protecting the country. At a time when bipartisanship has hit all-time lows, there are few issues more widely agreed upon by both Republicans and Democrats alike. The George W. Bush administration, for example, proclaimed that bases abroad have “maintained the peace” and provided “symbols of … U.S. commitments to allies and friends.” The Obama administration, for its part, declared that “forward-stationed and rotationally deployed U.S. forces continue to be relevant and required” as they “provide a stabilizing influence abroad.” — David Vine, Base Nation_ How U.S. Military Bases…, 24

Categorization

Category: Factual Claims

Related

• Both Bush and Obama administrations endorsed overseas basing as stabilizing (similarity 0.87)
• The U.S. holds more foreign bases than any empire in history (similarity 0.84)
• The reciprocal scenario of foreign bases in America is unthinkable (similarity 0.83)
• Judgments about overseas base security value rest on prior beliefs, not evidence (similarity 0.83)
• US overseas bases make war more likely by easing military action (similarity 0.83)
• The peace-keeping rationale for overseas bases lacks supporting evidence. (similarity 0.83)
• All non-U.S. countries combined have about thirty foreign bases (similarity 0.82)
• Overseas base support rests on an unprovable appeasement counterfactual (similarity 0.82)
• Dissent against the overseas base policy is dismissed as isolationism or peacenik idealism (similarity 0.81)
• Closing overseas bases draws support across the US political spectrum. (similarity 0.81)
• Without a superpower rival, overseas bases enable offensive wars of choice (similarity 0.81)
• All non-US countries combined hold thirty bases versus America’s eight hundred (similarity 0.81)
• Overseas bases reveal America’s permanent war footing and militarized economy (similarity 0.81)
• Historical base cases cannot prove that overseas bases provide security (similarity 0.80)
• The U.S. can project force globally without any permanent overseas bases. (similarity 0.80)