The destroyers-for-bases deal transformed the US into a global military power.

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 (#expands, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: WWII permanently transformed US defense doctrine to require overseas deployments.; US overseas bases extend an ancient imperial strategy of encircling domination; The global base network is what enables the U.S. to wage distant wars (+4 more)

Related

• Postwar US power substituted a global base network for direct colonial control (similarity 0.92)
• The United States planned its postwar base network before Pearl Harbor. (similarity 0.89)
• Overseas bases reveal America’s permanent war footing and militarized economy (similarity 0.88)
• Postwar decolonization forced the military to maintain colonies under new guises via bases (similarity 0.87)
• Bases served a grand strategy of global economic access without colonies. (similarity 0.85)
• Postwar US military global reach exceeded that of any prior empire (similarity 0.84)
• The destroyers-for-bases deal marked the start of US global basing empire (similarity 0.83)
• The global base network is what enables the U.S. to wage distant wars (similarity 0.83)
• Modest base acreage nonetheless gave the U.S. global reach (similarity 0.83)
• The U.S. holds more foreign bases than any empire in history (similarity 0.83)
• The 1940 destroyers-for-bases deal founded today’s U.S. global base system. (similarity 0.82)
• Postwar US planners saw the war as empire-building and fused national with global security (similarity 0.82)
• The United States retains overseas territories primarily for military power projection. (similarity 0.82)
• By 1900 the U.S. had an overseas base network rivaling European colonial powers (similarity 0.81)
• Bases expanded American power far beyond the small territory they occupy. (similarity 0.81)

Broader Connections

• The global base network is what enables the U.S. to wage distant wars #expands (0.60)
• US overseas bases extend an ancient imperial strategy of encircling domination #expands (0.55)
• Postwar US power substituted a global base network for direct colonial control #expands (0.55) — David Vine, Base Nation_ How U.S. Military Bases…, 96
• The United States retains overseas territories primarily for military power projection. #expands (0.50)
• Overseas bases reveal America’s permanent war footing and militarized economy #expands (0.50)
• Alfred Thayer Mahan’s doctrine made bases central to U.S. naval power. #expands (0.45)