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Why does America have so many overseas bases?
I can obviously see why there are troops in Iraq, Afghanistan, somalia and such. But why is the US expanding its airbases in Italy? what is that helping? why are there in fact any bases in western Europe at all, isn't the cold war over? What is the point of putting thousands of marines in Australia what the hell are they doing?
Its not as if America hasn't got the variety of terrain neccessarry to train its troops for everyting and its not as if these countries havn't got powerful militaries capable of defending themselves. Why are there no simillar bases of European or asian troops in America?
If America is "the world's policemen" why was it the only the EU who responded to Darfur. Why are the Irish and French fighting there but Americans aren't in what, many agree, would be a more just war than Iraq.
Hexacon: I can see why they might just be needed to protect embassies in more abrasive countries (though Britain doesn't need one in Argentina). But what about clearly allied countries and strategically useless countries. Canada, Australia and Britain are too far away from any hot zone to be of use. Australia itself keeps a check on indonesia and Malaysia as does Britain, why do Amerians need to be there? And as for wars in Europe, thats the whole point of the EU, to make sure they don't happen and the Lisbon treaty now means that European wars must be responded to by every member state whose combined military power equals that of the US. All of the few ground manouvres and many of the air attacks of the kosovo war were carried out by EU troops, America didn't need to be there.
6 Answers
- rayvenLv 71 decade agoFavorite Answer
Military bases in various countries give the US the ability to conduct operations worldwide to protect its interests.
If war broke out in Europe and the US was involved in any way, we would have bases in Germany and Italy to stage attacks from. In Asia, we have Japan.
The bases currently in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Somalia are there for the obvious reasons of quelling violence and uprising against US troops.
- Anonymous1 decade ago
to the person who said the US is an empire, not were not nor do we wish, reason the military has hundres of bases is for several reasons - humanitarian(im serious), training(trainig foreign armies to defend themselves) protect our embassies(espescially the bigger ones with more citizens) or places that are strategically important, of course with bases we pay the host countries and oh sometimes countries want a base of us military on their soil for protextion, so its not bout us being imperialistic it is just that we are the guardian of freedom and protector of the world. hope i answered your question
- ClanManLv 71 decade ago
This is a major part of expanding an empire, and America is by definition an empire.
- 1 decade ago
Because, like it or not, we are the world's policeman. Really, when Iraq invaded Kuwait, did the Kuwaitis call Finland? No.
To those who call it imperialism: Dare we hope.
Source(s): Unrepentant imperialist - How do you think about the answers? You can sign in to vote the answer.
- Anonymous1 decade ago
World domination..simple as that.
