The Army chose a free-site base in Italy over a costly, better-located one.

Evidence

Texas Republican senator Kay Bailey Hutchison was one of only a few congressmembers to question the request at the time. During the hearings, she asked why an airborne brigade would consolidate on a base lacking an airfield or any means of getting aloft. (In fact, the planned construction at Dal Molin would destroy the existing runway that had served small numbers of U.S. aircraft since the mid-1950s.) To deploy, soldiers would have to travel two to three hours northeast from Vicenza to Aviano Air Base. Why, Hutchison asked, would a “rapid reaction” brigade be placed in such an unfavorable location? Why was the 173rd not consolidating around Aviano? … “We have thought it through greatly,” Assistant Secretary of the Army Keith Eastin insisted. He said land acquisition costs at Aviano and other locations were prohibitive, while Dal Molin would come gratis. (Most, if not all, of the land for bases in Italy comes free of charge from the Italian government.) … “Ever since Hannibal, I do not think it has been particularly good to have part of your force on one side of the Alps and the other part on the other,” Eastin said, referring to Vicenza and the two German bases. “So the intention is to bring it all in one place, that place being south of the Alps, which operationally I am told … significantly eases the ability to deploy from having to get only one clearance for airspace from one country rather than several, which would happen up in Germany.” — David Vine, Base Nation_ How U.S. Military Bases…, 739

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the broader theme running through this book that basing decisions are driven by politics and cost rather than operational logic.