Green Party View: Touching (military) base(s)

Editor’s note: The opinions expressed in this column are those of author Carolina Cositore Sitrin and are not representative of the thoughts or opinions of Tompkins Weekly.  

The United States has about 500 military bases within our borders. These provide a place for service members and their families to live and work and are ready to defend the country from attack; they also contribute economically to the communities where they are located. That’s the good news. 

What is not good is that all bases, foreign and domestic, are huge polluters and have become environmental disaster areas. Military bases contribute overwhelmingly to climate change due to their high consumption of fossil fuels, primarily through the operation of aircraft, naval vessels and land vehicles, making them one of the largest institutional emitters of greenhouse gases globally. This high fuel usage through reliance on jet fuel, diesel, and other fossil fuels for transportation and equipment, their vast infrastructure, including power plants and naval vessels using bunker fuel, all contribute to great air, water and land pollution and degradation. 

Since World War II, the earth has been blanketed in military bases. 

Foreign bases can be used as staging areas for logistical, communications and intelligence support. They enable a country to project power, for example to conduct expeditionary warfare, and they significantly encourage the proliferation of weapons. Such bases alternately reassure, lull and annoy allies – even when present with that government’s permission — often becoming mini-colonizing stations with locals as second class citizens and resident military immune to prosecution for crimes. Foreign bases also both deter and provoke potential enemies; they are not calming agents. Rather than make any of us safer, they are magnets for terrorist actions.

In short, foreign bases are part of the expensive war machine used for political influence and regional stabilization from the perspective of the occupying power, to contain and deter opponents and most of all, to be ready to wage war.

The US does not have any foreign base on its territory, but has around 800 military bases in other countries, a number that could be much higher depending on whether you count the bases in Iraq and because the Pentagon is not completely forthcoming. These foreign bases house some 160,000 active-duty personnel, not including deployed combat troops, at a cost to US taxpayers of around 100 billion dollars a year. 

Our 800-odd bases are more overseas military bases than any other country in the world. In fact, they are much more than all the rest of the world’s foreign bases together! The UK’s 145 and France’s 14 bases are mostly located in their former colonies. The Russian Federation has 20 military bases abroad, but except for Syria, they are in former Soviet bloc countries. Turkey also has a substantial number of bases in foreign countries and more in Iraq than any other. Much smaller numbers of overseas military bases are operated by China, Iran, India, Italy, Japan, Saudi Arabia, Singapore and the United Arab Emirates. The US military is often cited as the biggest offender of carbon emissions impacting the world environment. 

We have so many bases partly because we became a global peacekeeper after World War II, expanded them during the Cold War, and multiplied them again on an unprecedented scale for the War on Terrorism. Even though Japan, Germany and Korea are now stable democracies and American allies and the Cold War is over, thousands of troops and much of our military infrastructure remain in these countries; not always with the will of the local population. (Residents of Okinawa, Japan routinely protest our bases and Cuba has demanded removal of our illegal base from Guantanamo for 66 years.)

To review. Some purposes of military bases, such as domestic defense, is good, and some, like provoking and annoying other nations and the enormous cost, are not so good. One aspect that is bad for all is the enormous effect military bases have on our climate.

What can be done: As with most things, there is a range of possibilities.

Places to start would be transitioning to renewable energy sources like solar and wind power at military bases, which could significantly reduce emissions. Investing in more fuel-efficient vehicles and aircraft can decrease fuel consumption.

The Green Party has urged our government to phase out all bases not specifically functioning under a U.N. resolution to keep peace and to bring home our troops stationed abroad, except for the military assigned to protect a U.S. embassy. Many of these bases are small and can be closed immediately. We advocate further reductions in U.S. foreign military bases at a rate of closure of 1/4 to 1/5 of their numbers every year.

World Without War advocates for the dismantling of all foreign and domestic military bases around the world. It sees closing bases as a necessary step to shift the global security paradigm toward a demilitarized approach that centers on common security – no one is safe until all are safe.

We all can become better informed about effects and options. Consider finding and joining a local action on the Global Day of Action to Close Bases on February 23, 2025 at military bases the world over. 

In upstate New York, you could join Vets for Peace, Jewish Voices for Peace, Pax Christi, Code Pink, World Without War, as well as many other antiwar organizations, at Hancock 174^thAttack Wing, 6001 E. Malloy Road in Syracuse, New York. In addition to the demonstration, there will be an ecumenical prayer meeting at the main entrance at 1 PM.

Carolina Cositore Sitrin is a retired editor, teacher and social worker now living in Dryden. She is a lifelong and non-retired activist.