Overseas bases sustain colonial relationships that deny citizens basic democratic rights

Evidence

The attitude shows us how the base nation has relied on continuing colonial relationships in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, albeit under new guises and with new terminology. After all, in the post–World War II age of decolonization, with rare exceptions, maintaining large colonies became impossible. But as the Strategic Island Concept shows, the government and a few of its European allies found ways to maintain a handful of small mostly island colonies, largely because of their strategic value as base sites. From the military’s perspective, ongoing colonial relationships have allowed officials to “do what we want” without many of the restrictions faced in the fifty states or in fully independent nations. From the perspective of the Chamorros on Guam and others trapped in similar colonial relationships today, the military’s attachment to overseas bases means that they still lack the basic democratic rights and freedoms taken for granted by most of their fellow citizens. — David Vine, Base Nation_ How U.S. Military Bases…, 260

As the cases of base displacement show and as other evidence will reveal, the military has frequently adopted a “we can do what we want here” attitude in Guam, Diego Garcia, Okinawa, Puerto Rico, the Philippines, Panama, Greenland, and well beyond. The attitude shows us how the base nation has relied on continuing colonial relationships in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, albeit under new guises and with new terminology. After all, in the post–World War II age of decolonization, with rare exceptions, maintaining large colonies became impossible. But as the Strategic Island Concept shows, the government and a few of its European allies found ways to maintain a handful of small mostly island colonies, largely because of their strategic value as base sites. From the military’s perspective, ongoing colonial relationships have allowed officials to “do what we want” without many of the restrictions faced in the fifty states or in fully independent nations. From the perspective of the Chamorros on Guam and others trapped in similar colonial relationships today, the military’s attachment to overseas bases means that they still lack the basic democratic rights and freedoms taken for granted by most of their fellow citizens. — David Vine, Base Nation_ How U.S. Military Bases…, 260

Categorization

• DEFINE: Clarifies the book’s core concept of the base nation relying on continuing colonialism in new guises.
• XREF: Connects to broader colonial-structure theories (e.g., settler colonialism literature) and to the reader’s interest in how base relationships replicate empire.
• DEEPTHINKING: The claim that small island ‘colonies’ survived decolonization specifically because of their value as base sites is a dense thesis with broad explanatory reach beyond a one-sentence summary.
• corroborated: 3 independent passages support this claim — David Vine, Base Nation_ How U.S. Military Bases…, 260