For years, the Pentagon has been pushing for a new round of domestic base closures, arguing that several sites within the US serve no military purpose and cost a lot of money to keep open. Congress has shot them down every time.
The latest Pentagon report, however, warns that the growing overseas deployments and shrinking number of troops as the budget priorities switch to weaponry are making this even more glaring, and that by 2019, 22% of US bases will be “excess,” including fully 33% of all US Army bases.
Deputy Secretary of Defense Bob Work is pushing again for closures, noting that the “savings” from having the bases down to a skeleton crew are much smaller than they could realize if they were allowed to close the bases outright. As usual, Congress seems unlikely to go along.
Rep. Mac Thornberry (R – TX), the House Armed Services chair, insists that the new report doesn’t justify base closures, and insists “no one believes” the 2019 projections anyhow, and that “it makes no sense” to believe the military will ever get that small.
More bases overseas, fewer bases in the US?
Of course Congress balked- who wants to tell their constituents they’re closing a cash cow for their district? It’s got nothing to do with troop levels and everything to do with barrels of pork.
Folks, this is a Punch n’ Judy routine. The Pentagon KNOWS Congress wont vote any more “BRICs”– so there’s no risk in proposing them. It’s a win-win for both: The reps pat themselves on the back for saving the local economies, and the DoD (i.e., a JV of Lockheed-Boeing-Bechtel.etc) gets the next F-35 and claims how it shouldn’t be penalized about the cost because it tried its best to cut its budget elsewhere.
The only losers are Americans. Willing, willfully blind, moo-ing and baa-ing before the altar of 911. America gets what it deserves.
The “growing overseas deployments” are what needs to be cut, chopped, eliminated, removed, got rid of, done away with, ended, terminated, and extinguished. The faster we ‘bring the boys (and girls) home’ the better off our country will be in the long run. How many years have we been in Korea? 66? Afghanistan – 15, Iraq about the same, and countless bases worldwide since WW II. There are well over 600 bases outside of US borders, and really, what security do we get from them – not much, since our enemy today are small groups of jihadis, dangerous enough, sure, but our overseas presences tend to make the jihadi groups grow instead of reducing them.