Foreign Military Bases Research Articles

NIMBY or YIMBY? Understanding the complex relationships between foreign military bases and host societies

Abstract Based on a scoping review of English-language scientific literature for the period of 1990–2022, the article presents a synthetic outline of previous research, focusing on factors influencing the specifics of foreign military bases (FMBs) as examples of facilities that mostly generate negative attitudes known as ‘Not In My Backyard’ (NIMBY). The specific characteristics of different categories of objects that generate various social attitudes are also presented. The results of the analyses include a classification of factors and aspects related to the local impacts of foreign military bases, which have not been analysed before.

Immunities: State Immunity from Claims of Anti-Union Discrimination at Foreign Military Bases

Immunities: State Immunity from Claims of Anti-Union Discrimination at Foreign Military Bases

«Мягкая сила» малых стран: опыт Монголии

Introduction. The experience of recent decades shows small countries — though characterized by relatively limited foreign policy capacity — can defend their interests through ‘soft power’. Being obviously inferior to greater powers in military, political and economic aspects, small countries seek to compensate for their vulnerability with softer methods of influence. Nowadays, Mongolia is a classic case of a small country under the influence of such great powers as Russia, China, and the United States to successfully employ soft power tools. Goals. The article aims to identify where and how Mongolia uses soft power in its foreign policy. Materials and methods. The study primarily explores Mongolia’s official documents dealing with its national security and foreign policy, international initiatives of Ulaanbaatar, statements of Mongolian executives on relations with foreign partners, media materials. The employed research methods include the comparative, narrative, and retrospective ones. Results. There are three most promising lines for soft power in contemporary Mongolia’s foreign policy. The first one is that the country presents itself as a successful young democracy in the heart of Asia capable of becoming a model for a number of other small countries in the region. The second one is the policy of de facto neutrality manifested in refusal to deploy nuclear weapons and foreign military bases in Mongolian territory, as well as the active participation in UN peacekeeping operations. Finally, the third soft power line (to be perceived as one) is Ulaanbaatar’s active promotion of its mediation role to resolve urgent problems localized in Northeast Asia. Maintaining friendly relations with virtually all Northeast Asian states, Mongolia seeks to become a platform for international negotiations similar to that of Switzerland. Conclusions. Thus, soft power for Ulaanbaatar is an important two-sided tool supposed, firstly, to accelerate international influence and, secondly, to ensure national security and sovereignty.

Whole Genome Sequencing of SARS-CoV-2 Strains in COVID-19 Patients From Djibouti Shows Novel Mutations and Clades Replacing Over Time.

Since the start of COVID-19 pandemic the Republic of Djibouti, in the horn of Africa, has experienced two epidemic waves of the virus between April and August 2020 and between February and May 2021. By May 2021, COVID-19 had affected 1.18% of the Djiboutian population and caused 152 deaths. Djibouti hosts several foreign military bases which makes it a potential hot-spot for the introduction of different SARS-CoV-2 strains. We genotyped fifty three viruses that have spread during the two epidemic waves. Next, using spike sequencing of twenty-eight strains and whole genome sequencing of thirteen strains, we found that Nexstrain clades 20A and 20B with a typically European D614G substitution in the spike and a frequent P2633L substitution in nsp16 were the dominant viruses during the first epidemic wave, while the clade 20H South African variants spread during the second wave characterized by an increase in the number of severe forms of COVID-19.

The Significance of Foreign Military Bases as Instruments of Spheres of Influence

The category of the sphere of influence can explain some contemporary international processes. To define that category, however, much stress is laid on great powers’ exclusivity within their spheres of influence. The author takes into consideration the thesis of the aforementioned exclusivity’s erosion. Because foreign military bases are essential instruments of spheres of influence due to their strong impact on security policy, it is worth investigating their presence in this context. Specifically, the author carries out an in-depth study of military bases of more than one major power in one host country. Further, the article discusses the extent to which the gradual erosion of exclusivity undermines the significance of spheres of influence as such. In conclusion, the author states that the case of Djibouti undermines the idea of great power exclusivity. Yet, other cases do not provide sufficient evidence on such deep transformation because of either limited periods of bases’ existence or great power cooperative attitudes.

FROM FRIENDSHIP TO ENMITY SOVIET-IRANIAN RELATIONS (1945-1965)

FROM FRIENDSHIP TO ENMITY SOVIET-IRANIAN RELATIONS (1945-1965)

No Bases? Assessing the Impact of Social Movements Challenging US Foreign Military Bases

Militarism and militarization have inspired opposition for millennia. In the post–World War II era, dozens of social movements challenging the existence and operation of US and other foreign (extraterritorial) military bases have provided a prominent example of antimilitarization activism. Movements from Okinawa, Japan, and Jeju, South Korea, to Vieques, Puerto Rico, and Vicenza, Italy, have struggled to close existing bases, stop the construction of new bases, and reduce or eliminate the harms that bases frequently inflict on local communities. This article reviews the history and effects of antibase movements, including recent efforts to create a global “No Bases” movement. While these movements have achieved varying degrees of success and had complicated impacts at individual, local, national, and global scales, this article shows that antibase movements collectively have been important actors in international geopolitics, with significant global influence. Specifically, movements have disrupted everyday military operations and reshaped the global deployment of US bases abroad. Antibase movements thus provide an example of how antimilitarization movements can check, slow, and in some cases reverse militarization—although militarization can continue after base closures. The article concludes with seven tentative hypotheses explaining why some antibase movements are more successful than others in achieving their stated aims.

Whither Non-Alignment? Indian Ocean Zone of Peace and New Delhi’s Selective Alignment with Great Powers during the Cold War, 1964–1979

ABSTRACTFirst proposed in 1964 by the Sri Lankan prime minister, the Indian Ocean Zone of Peace [IOZP] entailed eradication of foreign military bases from the Indian Ocean region as well its denuclearisation. During the Cold War, India was one of the most vehement supporters of IOZP. If some saw India’s interests in the IOZP as another manifestation of Nehruvian idealism, others viewed it as a part of its non-aligned foreign policy. This analysis argues otherwise. India’s record on IOZP reveals a policy of selective alignment with Great Powers and its adaptation to the principles of power politics in international relations. India’s support for the presence of one or the other Great Powers in the Indian Ocean region found premise on balancing those it considered hostile to its national security interests. In public, India supported the call for IOZP as dictated by its non-aligned foreign policy; privately, New Delhi remained highly sceptical and often worked to IZOP’s detriment. Under the cloak of IOZP, India not only pursued diplomatic alignment with Great Powers but also ensured that its own regional ambitions remain unchecked. In this picture, India’s role was not only supportive of the Cold War but to the extent it could use the opportunities provided by superpower rivalry in the region to further its own ends, even determinative of the process.

Ecuador’s Early No-foreign Military Bases Movement*

Peace activists from around the world gathered in Ecuador in 2007 for the International Conference for the Abolition of Foreign Military Bases and demanded the closure of existing foreign bases, a cleanup of environmental contamination, and an end to legal immunity for foreign military personnel. They called for support for and solidarity with “those who struggle for the abolition of all foreign military bases worldwide.”1 The conference came immediately after Rafael Correa, riding a rising tide of anti-imperialist sentiment, assumed office. The leftist president highlighted the United States’ hypocrisy when he famously quipped that he would allow the United States to maintain its military presence in Ecuador if in exchange the United States would permit his country to establish a base in Miami. Correa refused to renew a ten-year lease on the military base at Manta. When the U.S. lease expired two years later, U.S. troops peacefully departed. The 2007 no-bases conference came four years after a decades-long struggle forced the U.S. navy to abandon its bombing range on the small Puerto Rican island of Vieques.2 The United States’ departures from Vieques and Manta joined a growing list of well-documented examples of organized pressure forcing the closure of military facilities. In 1990, protests led George H. W. Bush to stop military exercises on the Hawaiian island of Kaho’olawe. Local opposition led to the closing of the Clark Air Base and Subic Bay Naval Repair Facility in the Philippines, as well as the Rocky Flats nuclear weapons plant in Colorado. Military bases at Okinawa, Japan, and Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean also faced significant resistance. Successful mobilizations against bases demonstrated that the U.S. military was not hegemonic and invincible, and that with significant organization, social movements could defeat imperial forces. The U.S. military advanced the narrative that it no longer needed a particular base and had willingly left of its own accord as part of a cost savings measure or due to changes in military strategy. The military’s previous entrenchment in the face of intense opposition, however, raised questions of whether their forces would have departed had they not confronted organized pressure.3

In Defense of the Southern Borders of Russia and Allied Countries (the Russian Foreign Military Bases on the Black Sea-Caspian Arc of Tension)

In Defense of the Southern Borders of Russia and Allied Countries (the Russian Foreign Military Bases on the Black Sea-Caspian Arc of Tension)

Unrecognized States in the Former USSR and Kosovo: A Focus on Standing Armies

The end of the Cold War and the collapse of the USSR and Yugoslavia result in a proliferation of unrecognized and weak states, which continue to exist today. This article considers the relationship between unrecognized states and the major powers, Russia and the United States, by focusing on the foreign military bases or standing armies of the latter. In addition, unrecognized states, their parent countries, and similar states have received significant merits and profits from being unrecognized states, and this situation has also helped the survival of unrecognized states. It is possible that unrecognized states can be understood as part of the global strategies of the two great powers and that these states have been maintained through a complex negotiation process that is designed to maintain the superpowers’ global influence.

Sentry Box in the Backyard: Analysis of French Military Bases in Africa

Foreign military bases are the important means for power projection. In Africa, military bases represent the symbol of France’s sphere of influence, which have strengthened France’s protection of h...

Space as the Ultimate Imperial Base

In the tradition of all great empires, the United States has established a network of foreign military bases from which to project force in the world. The United States' 1,000 such bases in 130 dif...

Architecture of U.S. Asia‐Pacific hegemony

As the last 100 years of Philippine history testify, military colonization, foreign military bases, and unequal alliances have been essential to the United States’ Asia‐Pacific empire. U.S. efforts to return to this island nation through the ostensibly benign “Visiting Forces Agreement” and the construction of the enormous General Santos base in Mindanao illustrate the continuing U.S. presence in the Asia—Pacific. Having bases in the Philippines allows U.S. domination of strategic sea lines of communications and U.S. foreign military intervention. But the real foundation for U.S. Asia—Pacific hegemony is the 45‐year‐old U.S.‐Japan Mutual Security Treaty (MST), which has been revised and expanded for the twenty‐first century.

Book Reviews

Peace & ChangeVolume 17, Issue 2 p. 248-260 Book Reviews First published: April 1992 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-0130.1992.tb00583.xAboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditWechat Abstract Book reviewed in this article: The Sun Never Sets: Confronting the Network of U.S. Foreign Military Bases, edited by Joseph Gerson and Bruce Birchard The Politics of Dissent: Pacifism in France, 1919–1939 by Norman Ingram Alternative Security: Living without Nuclear Deterrence, edited by Burns H. Weston Volume17, Issue2April 1992Pages 248-260 RelatedInformation

Document: The Manila Declaration. Statement of the Asia—Pacific People's Conference on Peace and Development

Over 200 peace and nuclear disarmament activists from 18 countries assembled in Manila, Philippines from January 10–14, 1989 to participate in the Asia-Pacific Peoples Conference for Peace and Development. Sponsored by the Australian Anti-Bases Coalition campaign and the Nuclear Free and Independent Pacific-Philippine Forum, in conjunction with grassroots multi-sectoral and issue-oriented groups in the Philippines, the conference seeks to promote a regional approach to nuclear disarmament, demilitarization, the elimination of foreign military bases, peace and development in the Asia-Pacific region. As a result of this conference, the Asia-Pacific People's Forum on Peace and Development, a transnational coalition of organizations and individuals committed to a“nuclear free and independent Asia and Pacific region,” was organized. As a truly broad people's movement, the Forum has declared its support, among others, of the“total dismantling of all nuclear arms and foreign military and intelligence bases in our region,” the“full support for the inherent rights of indigenous peoples to their ancestral domains, and to their self-determination and preservation of their cultural heritage,” the“elimination of all discrimination based on race, gender, class, and religion,” the“full implementation of all international conventions on human rights, disarmament, peace, and development, throughout the region,” and“ending the use of foreign debt as the major vehicle of economic intervention and domination in the region, and repudiating “Third World’ debt. Demanding a new, just, and equitable economic order.” In light of the journal's commitment to peace, economic well being, social justice and ecological balance, we are publishing these documents for our readership's information and reflection. Additional information about the Forum may be obtained from Asia-Pacific People's Forum on Peace and Development, 5 Road 13th, Quezon City, Philippines, or 1314 14th Street, #5, N. W., Washington, DC 20005, USA.

Garcia, Edmondo 1988. The Sovereign Quest: Freedom from Foreign Military Bases. Quezon City: Claretian Publications

Garcia, Edmondo 1988. The Sovereign Quest: Freedom from Foreign Military Bases. Quezon City: Claretian Publications

Nationalism, security and foreign military bases: A question of interests

Nationalism, security and foreign military bases: A question of interests

Austria’s Permanent Neutrality and the United Nations Organization

In the Memorandum signed at Moscow, on April 15, 1955,1 the Austrian and Soviet Delegations came to an agreement binding the Austrian Delegation to carry out the following decisions and measures:1. Referring to the declaration made at the conference of Berlin in 1954 neither to join a military alliance nor to allow foreign military bases in its territory, the Austrian Government will make a declaration in a form which will obligate Austria internationally to practice in perpetuity a neutrality of the type maintained by Switzerland.2. After having ratified the State Treaty, the Austrian Government will submit this declaration to the Austrian Parliament for confirmation according to the Austrian Federal Constitution.3. The Austrian Government will take all suitable steps to obtain international recognition of this declaration.4. The Austrian Government will welcome a guaranty by the four Powers of the independence and territorial integrity of Austria.5. The Austrian Government will seek to obtain from the governments of France, Great Britain, and the United States of America such a guaranty.