United
States exceptionalism has created a preternaturally excessive number
of military installments, deployments, and bases around the world. In
point of fact, as David Vine described for the Nation in September
2015:
“While
there are no freestanding foreign bases permanently located in the
United States, there are now around 800 US bases in foreign
countries. Seventy years after World War II and 62 years after the
Korean War, there are still 174 US ‘base sites’ in Germany, 113
in Japan, and 83 in South Korea, according to the Pentagon. Hundreds
more dot the planet in around 80 countries, including Aruba and
Australia, Bahrain and Bulgaria, Colombia, Kenya, and Qatar, among
many other places. Although few Americans realize it, the United
States likely has bases in more foreign lands than any other people,
nation, or empire in history.”
It’s
commonly accepted that, in terms of economic and political policy, as
Germany goes so goes Europe — and as the United States goes, so
goes Germany. Essentially, European nations’ historical fealty to
whims of the U.S. has created a juggernaut of obligatory policies
with other countries, whether or not such dealings ultimately prove
to be in Europe’s best interests. According to a U.S. Department of
Defense report dated June 2015, over 80,000 troops were stationed in
various locations in Europe — including 44,660 in Germany, alone —
and those numbers will be bolstered by 3,000 to 5,000 in 2017, “to
help countries harden themselves against Russian influence,” as
Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter stated in February.
But as
Professor Noam Chomsky explained in an exclusive interview with
AcTVism Munich, as the American empire gasps its last breaths, that
tide appears to be turning — and Europe, with Germany unofficially
stationed at the helm, stands before an open window to escape
overbearing U.S. influence.
“If you
go back to the early 50s,” Chomsky explained, “there was
always concern that Europe might move in a direction independent of
U.S. power. It might become what was called at the time a ‘third
force’ in international affairs. The dominant force was the United
States, the second force was the junior superpower … the Soviet
Union, and there was concern that Europe was, of course, a rich,
developed, advanced area that might just move in an independent
direction […] In fact, one of the functions of NATO, as is
generally understood, was to ensure that Europe would remain under
the U.S. aegis, but not move towards an independent direction.”
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