Postwar decolonization forced the military to maintain colonies under new guises via bases

Evidence

Roosevelt and others saw that the United States would have to exert its power through increasingly subtle and discreet means: the installation of bases as well as periodic displays of military might to keep as much of the world as possible within the rules of an economic and political system favorable to the United States. In 1970, a Senate committee found that “by the mid-1960s, the United States was firmly committed to more than forty-three nations by treaty and agreement and had some 375 major foreign military bases and 3,000 minor military facilities spread all over the world, virtually surrounding the Soviet Union and communist China.” As the late geographer Neil Smith explains, “global economic access without colonies” was the postwar grand strategy, with “necessary bases around the globe both to protect global economic interests and to restrain any future military belligerence.” Alongside U.S. economic and political might, the base network became a major and lasting mechanism of U.S. power, allowing control and influence over swaths of the earth vastly disproportionate to the land actually occupied. — David Vine, Base Nation_ How U.S. Military Bases…, 96 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: France has maintained and reinforced its Abidjan military base since colonial times; Postwar US power substituted a global base network for direct colonial control — David Vine, Base Nation_ How U.S. Military Bases…, 96; Overseas bases perpetuate themselves by inventing new missions as old ones expire (+6 more)

Related

• Postwar US power substituted a global base network for direct colonial control (similarity 0.91)
• Bases served a grand strategy of global economic access without colonies. (similarity 0.89)
• Postwar decolonization threatened to strip the U.S. of overseas bases (similarity 0.88)
• The destroyers-for-bases deal transformed the US into a global military power. (similarity 0.87)
• Decolonization threatened the end of Western overseas military bases (similarity 0.86)
• The United States planned its postwar base network before Pearl Harbor. (similarity 0.86)
• Postwar US planners saw the war as empire-building and fused national with global security (similarity 0.83)
• US support for decolonization served its own imperial aims (similarity 0.83)
• Overseas bases reveal America’s permanent war footing and militarized economy (similarity 0.82)
• Overseas bases generate dependent communities that resist closure (similarity 0.82)
• The U.S. holds more foreign bases than any empire in history (similarity 0.82)
• Overseas bases create entrenched constituencies dependent on their continuation (similarity 0.81)
• Every empire since Portugal has eventually lost its foreign bases (similarity 0.81)
• Postwar US military global reach exceeded that of any prior empire (similarity 0.80)
• Foreign military bases have underpinned imperial control since antiquity. (similarity 0.80)

Broader Connections

• Postwar US power substituted a global base network for direct colonial control #corroborates (0.80) — David Vine, Base Nation_ How U.S. Military Bases…, 96
• Overseas bases perpetuate themselves by inventing new missions as old ones expire #expands (0.75)
• U.S. planners feared decolonization would force withdrawal of overseas bases #corroborates (0.70)
• US support for decolonization served its own imperial aims #expands (0.60) — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 207