WHEN YOUR MEANS BECOMES YOUR END:

Bahrain's Base Politics: The Arab Spring and America’s Military Bases (Alexander Cooley and Daniel H. Nexon, April 5, 2011, Foreign Affairs)

U.S. policymakers have long struggled to reconcile their support for friendly authoritarian regimes with their preference for political liberalization abroad. The ongoing upheavals in the Middle East, like so many developments before them, shine a bright light on this inconsistency. In Egypt, the Obama administration struggled to calibrate its message on the protests that toppled longtime ally Hosni Mubarak; in Libya, it leads a multinational coalition intent on using airpower to help bring down Muammar al-Qaddafi; and in Bahrain, the United States stands mostly silent as Saudi troops put down popular protests against the ruling al-Khalifa family.

Washington's balancing act reflects more than the enduring tensions between pragmatism and idealism in U.S. foreign policy. It highlights the specific strains faced by defense planners as they attempt to maintain the integrity of the United States' worldwide network of military bases, many of which are hosted in authoritarian, politically unstable, and corrupt countries.

Well, sure, but the aim of American policy is not to have any bases anywhere, precisely because democratic reform -- nevermind technological advancement -- has made them superfluous.

Posted by oj at April 7, 2011 6:43 PM
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