“Access, not bases” rhetoric can mask actual U.S. base construction abroad.
Evidence
“Access, not bases” has become a mantra for some—although sometimes, as in the Philippines since 2001, “access” can become just another euphemism for a base. Through the work of DuBois and other U.S. negotiators in the Philippines, as many as six hundred American special forces troops began operating in the country’s south in early 2002, using perhaps as many as seven lily pads. Kaplan, one of the few journalists to visit the bases, noted that despite the Philippines’ constitutional ban on foreign bases, the new deployment “had succeeded as a political mechanism for getting an American base-of-sorts up and running.” — David Vine, Base Nation_ How U.S. Military Bases…, 156
Categorization
Category: Factual Claims
- XREF: Echoes prior chapter on Philippine bases closing in 1992 — showing how the U.S. re-established a de facto presence despite the constitutional ban.
Related
- Access agreements can circumvent constitutional bans on foreign bases (similarity 0.91)
- US ‘temporary’ facilities in the Philippines may evade its constitutional ban on foreign bases. (similarity 0.83)
- U.S. bases in the Philippines may violate the country’s constitutional ban (similarity 0.81)
- US forces enjoy unrestricted access to all Honduran bases with no status agreement. (similarity 0.80)
- A 1996 visiting forces agreement reopened the Philippines to U.S. troops (similarity 0.79)
- Joint military exercises function as a path to permanent access without formal bases. (similarity 0.79)