Small forward bases still harm local communities and provoke opposition.

Evidence

Although lily pads seem to promise insulation from local opposition, over time even small bases have harmed local communities and have often led to anger and protest movements. Crashes at drone bases in Djibouti and the Seychelles have already caused local apprehension and opposition. Military personnel operating from a lily pad in Colombia have committed rape. In Ecuador, U.S. Coast Guard counternarcotics operations sank several fishing vessels and may have been responsible for the deaths of fishers aboard at least one boat. And in Australia’s Cocos Islands, where U.S. officials have considered a lily pad, some locals fear they might suffer the same fate that befell the Chagossians exiled from Diego Garcia. — David Vine, Base Nation_ How U.S. Military Bases…, 1019

Categorization

Category: Causal Relationships

• QUESTION: Worth checking the Ecuador Coast Guard fishing vessel incident for specifics - deaths and whether any accountability followed.
• XREF: Connects to the Chagossian exile from Diego Garcia, covered elsewhere in Base Nation and in Vine’s own work.

Related

• Lily pads still generate local harm and protest despite their small footprint. (similarity 0.94)
• Smaller lily pad bases still harm local communities despite hopes they would avoid controversy. (similarity 0.86)
• The Pentagon shifted to small covert ‘lily pad’ bases to evade local opposition. (similarity 0.81)
• Losses of major bases drove the U.S. to build smaller lily pads worldwide (similarity 0.81)
• Small lily pad bases routinely expand into behemoth installations. (similarity 0.81)
• Smaller bases do not reliably avoid the local controversies large bases provoke (similarity 0.80)
• Lily pad networks reproduce full military capacity while avoiding bases’ visible political costs. (similarity 0.80)
• Closing big bases drove the Pentagon toward smaller lily pad facilities (similarity 0.80)
• Host-nation opposition and use restrictions are driving the Pentagon toward small covert bases (similarity 0.79)
• Small forward bases provoke local controversies just as much as large ones do (similarity 0.79)
• Scattered small bases force collaboration with despotic regimes and enable coups. (similarity 0.79)
• Base opposition movements achieve mixed, non-clear-cut results globally (similarity 0.78)