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joseph64daniels's review against another edition
4.0
Americans, generally believe that having a large number of United State military bases established throughout the world not only stabilizes security in foreign countries, but that it also serves as a deterrent for those who wants to wage war against the U.S. However, David Vine in his book, Base Nation:How U.S. Military Bases Abroad Harm America and the World, provides a strong argument that not only does the outposts do a poor job at any of these functions, but that it perpetrates a climate that war could break out at any moment.
Originally it was deemed to be imperative for the United States to have military bases spread out the world to stop the spread of communism during the peak of the Cold War, but after the fall of the Soviet Union, the military, Vine argues, that the military is now trying to find a purpose to exist.
While the United States claims that one of its goals in its foreign policy is to export democracy to other countries, on the other hand, it has become the norm for the military to back repressive regimes.
While it may seem that having a base in South Korea would deter North Korea from invading, there is a strong likelihood that its trying to create its very own nuclear program in retaliation.
While readers may not agree with all of Vine's arguments, Base Nation is still an important book to read to understand America's foreign policy's origins, and how U.S. outposts impact have on the countries that hosts them.
Originally it was deemed to be imperative for the United States to have military bases spread out the world to stop the spread of communism during the peak of the Cold War, but after the fall of the Soviet Union, the military, Vine argues, that the military is now trying to find a purpose to exist.
While the United States claims that one of its goals in its foreign policy is to export democracy to other countries, on the other hand, it has become the norm for the military to back repressive regimes.
While it may seem that having a base in South Korea would deter North Korea from invading, there is a strong likelihood that its trying to create its very own nuclear program in retaliation.
While readers may not agree with all of Vine's arguments, Base Nation is still an important book to read to understand America's foreign policy's origins, and how U.S. outposts impact have on the countries that hosts them.
highestiqinfresno's review against another edition
4.0
Good, but the Immerwahr book on American Empire is better.
freckled_frog_boi's review against another edition
medium-paced
5.0
With the timing of the news release about the sexual assault and kidnapping of a civilian minor by a marine in California, there was perhaps no more impactful time to be finishing this book. Truly, this book covers everything:
historical colonization and it's ties to bases, Neo-colonialization and it's ties to bases, how base architecture is built specifically to maintain nationalism, how living on base is living in a 'total institution' where you are watched 24/7 and have to continue routines that uphold the views of a powerful America, the culture of base-living, creation of coups in other countries just to keep bases located there, lies to maintain reasons to stay abroad, lies that allow the military to build bases if only in form and not in name, the labor of women in upholding the system and being victims of the system, the military's history of sexual assault, the dark and closely knit base ties to human trafficking, racism towards those who work to maintain the base operations, racism towards the countries in which the bases are located, base protests and the violent force used to subdue them, the many environmental hazards and climate irresponsibility the military shows - ruining the health of their own soldiers as well as entire islands and their citizens, their good connections with mobs and dictators, how military base contracting works and how the military has been monopolized by a lot of large corporations, how the pentagon has underrepresented military spending by hundreds of billions of dollars, --- and much more that I'm missing at the moment.
Such an impactful book, highly recommend, but definitely check trigger warnings because it almost gets overwhelming if you are trying to read multiple chapters in a row. Everything is so horrifying.
And for any military kids out there, babe you're gonna feel really seen with this, the book got the experience of living on base down to an art. You're gonna feel like all the stories and rules you heard about growing up on base start to make a lot more sense. You might have some stuff to bring up to a therapist, if I'm being totally honest.
historical colonization and it's ties to bases, Neo-colonialization and it's ties to bases, how base architecture is built specifically to maintain nationalism, how living on base is living in a 'total institution' where you are watched 24/7 and have to continue routines that uphold the views of a powerful America, the culture of base-living, creation of coups in other countries just to keep bases located there, lies to maintain reasons to stay abroad, lies that allow the military to build bases if only in form and not in name, the labor of women in upholding the system and being victims of the system, the military's history of sexual assault, the dark and closely knit base ties to human trafficking, racism towards those who work to maintain the base operations, racism towards the countries in which the bases are located, base protests and the violent force used to subdue them, the many environmental hazards and climate irresponsibility the military shows - ruining the health of their own soldiers as well as entire islands and their citizens, their good connections with mobs and dictators, how military base contracting works and how the military has been monopolized by a lot of large corporations, how the pentagon has underrepresented military spending by hundreds of billions of dollars, --- and much more that I'm missing at the moment.
Such an impactful book, highly recommend, but definitely check trigger warnings because it almost gets overwhelming if you are trying to read multiple chapters in a row. Everything is so horrifying.
And for any military kids out there, babe you're gonna feel really seen with this, the book got the experience of living on base down to an art. You're gonna feel like all the stories and rules you heard about growing up on base start to make a lot more sense. You might have some stuff to bring up to a therapist, if I'm being totally honest.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Gun violence, Police brutality, Sexual violence, Toxic relationship, Colonisation, Death, Emotional abuse, Misogyny, Murder, Sexual assault, Adult/minor relationship, Pedophilia, Rape, Classism, Deportation, Physical abuse, Racism, Sexual harassment, Suicide, Sexism, Violence, War, and Trafficking
dominiquefragments's review against another edition
challenging
dark
informative
medium-paced
5.0
I went into this book with absolutely zero knowledge about the United States' foreign presence and came out of it with a wealth of information. This book should be required reading in schools. So much mystery and obscurity surrounds the military and where exactly all of the money it devours goes. This book shed light on horrifying and enraging issues and the bottomless money pit that is the US military. It really hit a chord when the author brought up how much different the US would look if even a fourth of the money spent went into education, healthcare, and transportation within the US.