Campaign for the Accountability of American Bases

GAO Urges Steps on Missile Defense Operations

Global Security Newswire

March 28, 2011

The U.S. Missile Defense Agency made improvements in several operational areas last year, but should take additional actions to improve reporting on its spending, planning, and program success, congressional auditors said in a report published last week …

“In 2010, MDA made progress in delivering assets as well as increasing transparency and accountability,” the Government Accountability Office stated in its annual assessment of the Defense Department branch. “While many significant, positive steps were taken, GAO also found issues limiting the extent to which cost, schedule, and system performance can be tracked. Stabilizing the new acquisition approach, improving execution and increasing transparency are key steps for DOD.”

The agency failed to achieve all of its 2010 objectives for the Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense system, though the office obtained or surpassed its targets for efforts including antimissile updates to Aegis warships, according to the report …

Auditors said the Defense Department had yet to finish putting in place a procedure for overseeing procurements for the Obama administration’s “phased adaptive approach” to European missile defense, which emphasizes deploying Standard Missile 3 interceptors in and around Europe as a defense against Iranian missile threats ….

“Without key management and oversight processes, there is a limited basis for oversight, and there is a risk that key components will start production before demonstrating system performance,” a report summary states. “In the past, similar deficiencies in missile defense acquisition oversight have led to rework, cost increases, delays, and doubts about delivered capabilities.”

The Pentagon has not finished assessing the strengths and weaknesses of the Ground-based Midcourse Defense system, which is designed to eliminate long-range threats during the middle of flight, according to the GAO report …

Read on: www.globalsecuritynewswire.org/gsn/nw_20110328_3736.php

UK pays Afghan civilians over deaths, injuries

Associated Press
March 31, 2011

Britain’s defense ministry paid out 1.3 million pounds (US$2.1 million) last year in compensation to hundreds of Afghan civilians for deaths, injuries and damage to homes, data published Tuesday reveals.

The figures obtained by the Guardian newspaper under freedom of information laws show that Britain paid out in 951 cases of property damage, injury or death during 2010, while 409 applications for compensation were rejected.

The average payment was just over 2,000 pounds ($3,200) — often far below the amounts demanded.

The summaries of the claims show the disruptions of war to local people — “267 trees cut down for force protection”; “claims Warthog (armored vehicle) damaged crops.”

Others convey human tragedies in short, stark terms. One reads: “Two brothers and two sons killed by hellfire (missile) strike.” Another reads: “Compound destroyed. Mother and sister killed.”

Among the lowest payments for a death was an offer of $875 over the death of a girl killed following a rocket attack in the Nad-e-Ali district of the southern Helmand province.

The Ministry of Defense said payments were made in most cases as a goodwill gesture, not as recognition of legal liability. …

www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5gyIUyY5dgnQBjo3uPReUGtTqLCvg?docId=535dd1631a4b4145a3e327b612a030fd

US bases cause violence in Afghanistan

PressTV
March 10, 2011

Afghan Interior Minister Bismillah Mohammadi believes the establishment of US military bases in Afghanistan is among the root causes of growing violence and insecurity in the war-torn country.

High civilian casualties in US-led forces operations is another reason for escalating violence in Afghanistan, IRIB quoted Mohammadi as saying on Thursday.

The Afghan official expressed concern over continuous terrorist attacks in the war-wrecked country.

He further pointed out that over 70 cities in Afghanistan are still under terrorists’ threats.

According to a UN announcement, more than 2,700 Afghan civilians lost their lives in 2010. The overall figure is the highest annual death toll since the US-led invasion ten years ago. …

http://previous.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=169176&sectionid=351020403

Space: A competitive and hotly contested warfighting frontier for the US military

The Canadian Press
By Lolita C. Baldor
February 20, 2011

The U.S. military needs to better protect its satellites and strengthen its ability to use them as weapons as the uncharted battlefield of space becomes increasingly crowded and dangerous, Pentagon leaders say.

A new military strategy for space, as mapped out by the Pentagon, calls for greater co-operation with other nations on space-based programs to improve America’s ability to deter enemies.

“It’s a domain, like air, land and sea,” said Gen. Kevin Chilton, who led U.S. Strategic Command until he retired late last month. “Space is not just a convenience. It’s become a critical part in every other (battlefield) domain.”

The U.S., Chilton said, needs to make sure that it protects and maintains the battlefield capabilities it gets from space-based assets, including global positioning data, missile warning system information, and communications with fighters or unmanned drones that are providing surveillance or firing missiles against the enemy.

As the U.S. and other countries depend more on their satellites for critical data, those assets become greater targets for their enemies.

“It’s prudent to anticipate that, at this point, we will not go into a future conflict with a sophisticated adversary and not expect to be challenged in the space domain,” Chilton told The Associated Press in an interview. “We need to be thinking about how we would go into future conflicts and make sure that we un-level (that) battlefield in our favour.”

While the new strategy — the first of its kind — stresses the peaceful use of space, it also underscores the importance of satellites in both waging and deterring war. …

www.google.com/hostednews/canadianpress/article/ALeqM5iN7alL6nGKq8xpqstXi0-MoSbwUQ?docId=6013317

The U.S. Military and Bahrain

SLD (Second Line of Defense)
By Dr. Richard Weitz
February 24, 2011

One of the most important U.S. Navy bases in the world is located a few miles from the site of the mass protests in Bahrain: the headquarters of the Fifth Fleet. There are presently more than 2,000 American military personnel, and several thousand more support contractors working in the 100-acre command facility in Jaffair suburb of the capital city of Manama. If one includes their families, then the U.S. military community in Bahrain exceeds 6,000 people.

The base has been providing food, fuel, water, and other supplies to the U.S. Navy ships operating in the Persian Gulf, which has some 2.5 million square miles of water, for more than half a century. The U.S. Navy first started using Bahrain’s port during the 1940s and in 1950, began leasing headquarters space from the British. In 1971, the British government was compelled to reconcile the imbalance between its global security commitments and its declining resources by transferring its Gulf security role, and the Bahrain base, to the United States. …

Only a few small U.S. Navy ships such as minesweepers are stationed at the Bahrain naval base on a regular basis, mostly anchored offshore, though the Pentagon has commenced a half-billion dollar project to double the base’s size with the Bahraini government constructing jetties to allow the ships to moor closer to the shore. In May 1999, the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower became the first U.S. aircraft carrier to dock at Bahrain in more than 60 years. The only previous carrier visit occurred in 1948, when the much smaller 11,373-tonne escort carrier USS Rendova docked in Bahrain port.

But the entire Fifth Fleet, run out of Bahrain, normally has Carrier Strike Group, Amphibious Ready Group or Expeditionary Strike Group, and other ships and aircraft with approximately 25,000 military personnel serving afloat and 3,000 support personnel ashore in Bahrain. These naval forces typically represent some 60-80 percent of all American military forces in the Gulf area.

The base’s logistics and command-and-control functions have become especially important since 2001, when the United States dramatically increased its military presence in the Gulf region. At present, the Fifth Fleet command controls two carrier battle groups, led by the USS Carl Vinson and the USS Enterprise, and some 30,000 sailors. …

The Bahrain Defense Force (BDF) consists of an air force, air defense, army, navy, and royal guard units. The BDF has some 13,000 personnel, most of whom in the army, as well as another 1,200 National Guard members. The coast guard and public security forces are separate elements that fall under the authority of the Minister of the Interior. The BDF has sent small troop contingents to the military operations in Afghanistan. The most recent contribution has been a small police special security force. During both OEF and OIF, Bahrain also sent its U.S.-supplied frigate, the Subha, to help protect U.S. ships in the Persian Gulf. But the focus of the BDF is on homeland defense. The United States provides some security assistance to the country’s armed forces, including subsidizing some arms sales and training BDF personnel of various rank to the United States. The U.S. Office of Military Cooperation is attached to the U.S. Embassy in Bahrain manages this security assistance. During the past decade, Bahrain has acquired $1.4 billion worth of arms from the United States, a figure that includes both the hardware and the extensive contractor support, ammunition, upgrades, and other components of these sophisticated systems. …

… The level of further U.S. weapons sales to Bahrain will partly depend on whether the BDF uses earlier U.S.-supplied weapons inappropriately against the demonstrators.

Read more: www.sldinfo.com/?p=16267

Obama’s Pentagon cuts not what they seem

CNN Money
By Lawrence Korb and Laura Conley
February 11, 2011

For those of us who believe the U.S. government is spending more on defense than it needs to, President Obama’s budget on Monday will bring what sounds like welcome news: The administration is expected to propose a $78 billion reduction in defense spending over the next five years.

Unfortunately, there’s a lot more to the story.

First of all, the cuts might prove illusory. The federal government appropriates money one year at a time, and the vast majority of that $78 billion reduction would take place in 2014 and 2015, when there will be a new Secretary of Defense and possibly a new president.

In fact, Obama’s expected 2012 request of $553 billion would be 5% higher than what the Defense Department plans to spend this year. In inflation-adjusted dollars, this figure is higher than at any time during the Bush years or during the Cold War.

And that’s just the Defense Department part of the budget. There’s another $30 billion that agencies outside the defense spend to support the Pentagon. The largest share come from the Department of Energy, which uses the money to operate and maintain the several thousands nuclear weapons in the Pentagon’s arsenal. …

Read more, includling graph of historical defense spending: http://money.cnn.com/2011/02/11/news/economy/lawrence_korb_defense_obama_budget/

Asia’s New Arms Race

The Wall Street Journal
By Amol Sharma, Jeremy Page, James Hookway and Rachel Pannett
February 12, 2011

At Mazagon Dock near the southern tip of Mumbai, hidden behind high concrete walls, hundreds of Indian workers are putting the finishing touches on the hulls of two 217-foot Scorpène-class attack submarines, the first of six slated to be built over the next few years.

Nearby, workers are adding to India’s fleet of stealth frigates and guided-missile destroyers.

One big reason India is beefing up its arsenal: China.

“It goes without saying that India must be seriously concerned with the rise of China’s strategic power, including its military and economic power,” says Ashwani Kumar, member of parliament from India’s ruling Congress party. “India has consistently opposed an arms race—but India will not be found wanting in taking all measures necessary for the effective safeguarding of its territorial integrity and national interests.”

From the Arabian Sea to the Pacific Ocean, countries fearful of China’s growing economic and military might—and worried that the U.S. will be less likely to intervene in the region—are hurtling into a new arms race. …

Boeing and several other aerospace firms are also in the running for an estimated $10.5 billion contract for 126 fighter jets, India’s largest-ever defense order. “It’s an unsaid thing, but clearly China is a big issue,” says Mr. Lall.

Not many countries have benefited more from China’s economic rise than Australia. China is its largest commercial partner. It buys enormous amounts of Australian coal and iron ore, which has fueled a natural-resources boom.

But that hasn’t blunted concern that China’s military buildup is a threat to Australian security. The report published Monday says China is close to attaining enough military muscle to deny the U.S. and allied forces access to much of the Western Pacific rim.

“The assumption that U.S. and allied naval surface vessels can operate with high security in all parts of the Western Pacific is no longer valid,” the report said. U.S. aircraft carrier strike groups, it said, are becoming “increasingly vulnerable” to Chinese surveillance and weaponry up to 1,200 nautical miles from China’s coast.

Mr. Babbage, author of the report, contends that Australia can no longer afford to maintain a military focused mainly on participating in peacekeeping operations, as it is doing in East Timor, and on training foreign military forces, as it is in Afghanistan.

Australia’s planned $279 billion of military spending over the next 20 years will fund the biggest expansion of its military since World War II.

The report touches on a development that is especially worrisome to nations that host permanent U.S. military bases, such as Japan and South Korea. It says China is fielding ballistic and cruise missiles capable of destroying U.S. bases in Guam, Japan and elsewhere “within a few hours.” …

Read in full here: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704881304576094173297995198.html

Wake Up Call for U.S. Empire: Egypt an Opportunity for a Transformational New Beginning

OpEdNews.com

By Kevin Zees
February 3, 2011

Egypt is an alarm that highlights the urgent need for change in U.S. foreign policy. It provides President Obama an opportunity to transform a foreign policy that has often had the opposite effect that was sought and is undermining U.S. economic and national security.

The list of recent policy failures in the Middle East is quite astounding:

The Iraq War, intended to create a western style democracy and a base of operations for the U.S. in the region has weakened U.S. influence. U.S. military vulnerability to local resistance fighters was exposed. A wide range of abuses of civilians were reported. Perhaps the most damaging were the indelible mark left from the images of Americans torturing Iraqis. The war put in place a Shi’a government that is closely allied with Iran. The war and occupation have weakened U.S. economic security by costing $3 trillion , much of which will be spent over the next decade taking care of injured soldiers.

The U.S. has escalated the war in Afghanistan where once again local insurgents are holding the world’s only super power at bay, and according to some reports defeating the U.S. military. Last year saw increasing civilian and military casualties and 2011 is expected to be worse . The Afghan war-quagmire has the U.S. spending $1 million per year to keep each soldier in Afghanistan .

A third front, the CIA-led undeclared war in Pakistan, is escalating. Drone attacks have increased from 35 in 2008 to 124 in 2010. They killed 1,184 people in 2010, creating increasing hatred and new enemies for the United States. Pakistan has also become an area to attack the supply lines to troops in Afghanistan. As a nuclear-armed state the stakes in Pakistan are very high and its stability is becoming more fragile in part due to these U.S. policies. …

Read on: www.opednews.com/articles/Wake-Up-Call-for-U-S-Empi-by-Kevin-Zeese-110203-81.html

No meeting of the minds on New START

The Daily Caller
By Owen Graham and Michaela Bendikova
February 2, 2011

New START is a done deal. On Tuesday, the Russian Duma gave the green light to the nuclear arms reduction treaty, as the U.S. Senate had more than a month earlier.

There was little doubt the Duma would approve. After all, Moscow’s negotiators got much the better of their U.S. counterparts. But the provisions inserted into Russia’s ratification law reveal that there is no “meeting of the minds” in two key areas: ballistic missile defense and strategic conventional weapons.

The one-sidedness of the treaty was evident early on. Under New START, only the U.S. has to cut its nuclear arsenal. Russia can actually increase its nuclear stockpiles. Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov merely confirmed this when he told the Russian Parliament, “The treaty doesn’t constrain us in any way…its parameters considerably exceed our potential today.” He further added that Russia will not have to cut a single delivery vehicle or warhead before it expires on its own. “We will not cut a single unit.” …

Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2011/02/01/no-meeting-of-the-minds-on-new-start/

China’s military: threat or twist

OpenDemocracy
By Paul Rogers
January 28, 2011

Beijing’s promotion of a new strike aircraft may be less a powerful addition to its military arsenal than a sophisticated part of a deeper strategy.

Chinese websites began in December 2010 to publish intriguing photos of a new strike-aircraft, apparently taken on mobile phones at the airfield of the Chengdu Aircraft Design Institute. This airfield is not in a high-security zone, allowing members of the public to approach the perimeter; and the release of the images suggested that the Chinese military authorities were content to see the “leaking” of information about the new plane.

As more information became available in subsequent days, it appeared that indeed the new plane was a substantial advance on anything the Chinese had previously built. The shiver in the United States was considerable and palpable.

The new game

The J-20 is a large strike-aircraft of a similar size to the US’s F-111 multirole plane that in the cold-war period could act as a medium bomber. Its size and configuration indicate a substantial range and potential weapons-load, as well as some stealth features.

The publicity around it has resulted in a flurry of articles in the conservative US press. Most view the J-20 as further evidence of China’s potential military challenge; several also cite the recently tested DF-21D anti-ship ballistic missile that is said to be capable of targeting US aircraft-carrier battle-groups …

Some observers go further, and see the J-20 as a project capable of almost revolutionary change. Australian Air Power, for example:

“[The] JXX(J-20) is the ‘game changer’ in the sense that the large-scale deployment of operational production of these aircraft invalidates all of the key assumptions central to United States and allied air power force structure planning and development since the early 1990s.” …

Read on: www.opendemocracy.net/paul-rogers/china%E2%80%99s-military-threat-or-twist

U.S. Foreign Policy: Another “Inconvenient Truth”?

suite101.com
By Terri Lynn Sullivan
Jan 29, 2011

American imperialism may have led to an unintended but direct disaster in the United States.

The political discord between sustaining practices contributing to global warming as well as sustaining meaninglessly over-bloated military spending hold an uncanny resemblance.

Several false axioms have percolated through American culture for decades upon decades, becoming second nature to many of us. Our nation has been in the grip of a set of ideas that may not only be dead wrong…but on a collision course with sound economic and political developments.

“SUPERMAN” TO THE RESCUE!”

One of those false axioms is that a countries “power” is measured by how much it spends on “defense” or how strong its armed forces are. This righteous wrath became so ingrained in the American public brain as early as the 1940’s, when the United States emerged as the strongest power in the world. One symbol of that great “power“ was the almighty atomic bomb from WWII, and with it the false sense of bravado that such a disastrous weapon carries. We as a nation, took on a global crusade on behalf of “liberty, freedom and democracy”. …

Read on: www.suite101.com/content/us-foreign-policy–another-inconvenient-truth-a331885

Human Security in practice

OpenDemocracy
by Mary Kaldor
January 17, 2011

Mary Kaldor’s latest book is The Ultimate Weapon is No Weapon: Human Security and the New Rules of War and Peace co-authored with an American serving army officer, Shannon Beebe and published by Public Affairs. The book was primarily aimed at an American audience in the hope that the actual experience of Iraq and Afghanistan may open up an opportunity for rethinking security. It taps into what is already a wide-ranging debate in security circles. Here, our Human Security columnist introduces a special series of articles commissioned for openDemocracy on this theme.

One aspect of the global economic crisis that is rarely discussed is the hole in government budgets caused by the ongoing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and by the mind-boggling expense of weapons systems like Trident or advanced combat aircraft or aircraft carriers. In the United States, the War on Terror enabled President Bush to double the military budget; excluding the supplemental cost of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. US military spending accounts for some $700 billion a year, roughly the same as Obama’s stimulus plan, and the cost of the wars may be as much as three trillion dollars. What makes this myopia worse is that conventional military spending does not appear to contribute to a sense of security, if it ever did. Indeed, conventional war-fighting in places like Iraq and Afghanistan has contributed to a cycle of violence and provided an argument for the mobilisation of young men around Islamic extremist causes. This pervasive and contagious insecurity is likely to become worse as the global economic crisis unfolds and the effects of climate change are increasingly felt.

I use the term ‘human security’ to describe what is needed to address the every day insecurities experienced by people in different parts of the world – in violent conflicts, in mega cities riddled by criminal gangs as in Latin America, or even in seemingly safe places in Europe or North America. ‘Human Security’ offers an alternative to the binary language of allies and enemies that characterises the War on Terror. It is about the security of Afghans and Iraqis as well as the security of Americans and Europeans, about the security of individuals and not just states and borders. Human security also links the issues of violence to material deprivation and environmental risk. While my focus remains security in the traditional sense of personal safety, those traditional concerns cannot be disentangled from poverty and joblessness, or vulnerability to disease and natural or man-made disasters.

One of the ways of thinking about human security is in terms of the extension of domestic security. We in the West are used to the idea that security at home is the result of an effective rule of law and the availability of emergency services like police, ambulances or firefighters. Indeed, these were the kind of agencies that responded to 9/11 or 7/7. Security abroad, on the other hand, is assumed to be the responsibility of military forces and to take the form of war or the threat of war. …

Read on: www.opendemocracy.net/mary-kaldor/human-security-in-practice

Grading Obama: The progress report after two years

Foreign Policy
by David Rothkopf
January 20, 2011

We are two years into the Obama administration and judging by the president’s progress to date, assessments being made on this the second anniversary of his time in office are likely to be viewed not as midterm grades but as his first quarter report card. With an increasingly confident, experienced president at the helm of a country that seems to be gradually creeping toward economic recovery and with a divided opposition in search of a leader, Obama’s re-election prospects are looking better and better.

Still, the reality is that any assessment of the president’s progress to date must be taken with several large pillars of salt. … almost inevitably political and policy types overstate the influence of the president on the great issues of the day or even on those factors that weigh in his or her re-election. As is the case with most presidents, Obama’s future will most likely be dictated by exogenous developments over which he has only fairly limited influence …

• Afghanistan-Pakistan: This is the administration’s signature international issue. Unfortunately, it is also the area in which they have done the worst. Costs and troop commitments have gone way up but likelihood of a lasting, positive outcome — say a stable AfPak region in which the extremist threat is materially diminished — has not improved at all. …

  Grade: D

• Iran: The administration got off to a slow start in Iran, didn’t express support for protesters when it should have, and has not done anything to really counteract the threat Iran poses to the region via its support for Hezbollah and Hamas and its infiltration of the politics of its neighbors. However, the carefully coordinated, tireless efforts to find an effective diplomatic-cover action response to the Iranian nuclear program has shown some promising progress of late. …
  Grade: B
• Israel-Palestine: …

Read the rest of Obama’s “progress report” here:
http://rothkopf.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2011/01/20/grading_obama_the_progress_report_after_two_years

Remembering Eisenhower’s Farewell Address

Nuclear Age peace Foundation
by David Krieger
January 13, 2011

January 17, 2011 will be the 50th anniversary of President Eisenhower’s Farewell Address to the nation in which he warned of the dangers of the unwarranted influence of the military-industrial complex. I think he would be shocked to see how this influence has grown over the past half century and how it has manifested in the country’s immense military budgets, the nuclear arms race, our permanent war footing, the failure to achieve meaningful disarmament, and the illegal wars the US has initiated. In addition to all of this, there is the influence of the military-industrial complex on the media, academia, the Congress and the citizenry. It has also ensnared US allies, like those in NATO, in its net. Eisenhower believed that the only way to assure that the military-industrial complex can be meshed “with our peaceful methods and goals” is through “an alert and knowledgeable citizenry.”

Eisenhower was 70 years old when his term as president came to an end. He had been a General of the Army and hero of World War II, Supreme Commander of Allied Forces Europe, and for eight years the president of the United States. His Farewell Address was, above all else, a warning to his fellow Americans. He stated, “The conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience.” He worried about what this conjunction would mean in the future, famously stating, “In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for misplaced power exists and will persist.”

Eisenhower feared that this powerful complex would weaken democracy. “We must never,” he said, “let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes.” He felt there was only one force that could control this powerful military-industrial complex, and that was the power of the people. In Eisenhower’s view it was only “an alert and knowledgeable citizenry” that was capable of defending the republic “so that security and liberty prosper together.”

What kind of report card would President Eisenhower give our country today if he could come back and observe what has transpired over the past 50 years? For starters, I believe he would be appalled by the enormous increase in influence of the military-industrial complex. Today the military receives over half of the discretionary funds that Congress allocates, over $500 billion a year for the Department of Defense, plus the special allocations for the two wars in which the country is currently engaged. The Department of Defense budget does not take into account the interest on the national debt attributable to past wars, or the tens of billions of dollars in the Energy Department budget for nuclear arms, or the funds allocated for veterans benefits. When it is totaled, the US is spending over a trillion dollars annually on “defense.” …

Read on: www.wagingpeace.org/articles/db_article.php?article_id=194

The New Rules: U.S. Defense Cuts a Step in the Right Direction

World Politics Review
By Thomas P. M. Barnett

January 11, 2011

U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates unveiled his much-anticipated budget cuts last Thursday, signaling the beginning of the end of the decade-long splurge in military spending triggered by Sept. 11. Gates presented the package of cuts as being the biggest possible given the current international security landscape, warning that any deeper reductions could prove “potentially calamitous.” Frankly, I find that statement hard to swallow.

How can America basically match the rest of the world’s defense spending combined, and then describe anything less as “potentially calamitous”? Clearly, given the “nation’s grim financial outlook,” as Gates himself put it, we’re going to have to come up with a more-realistic force-sizing principle, rather than simply adding new threats to the list while never having the courage to trim back less-plausible ones.

Much like with the dollar’s declining status as global reserve currency, Americans are going to have to admit that we cannot and should not seek to dominate the global security system as much as we have, by default, over the past two decades. Far from being a bad thing, this is a tremendous achievement. America spent the second half of the 20th century building an international order premised on the notion that encouraging the trade-fueled rise of fellow great powers would create a better world.

We were both correct in that assumption and incredibly successful in making it happen. There is now more peace across the system, on a per capita basis, than at any time in human history. And the same holds for poverty reduction, income growth, life expectancy and social resilience in the face of natural and man-made disasters. Frankly, the biggest collective challenges we face going forward are: 1) accommodating the resource demands triggered by a ballooning global middle class; and 2) adjusting human life to climate change. These two admittedly daunting challenges grow out of our past, current and future success in extending globalization’s benefits across the planet.

But you wouldn’t know that from the way our national security establishment so stubbornly holds onto every one of its old fears while piling on new ones. In citing that “potentially calamitous” pathway of deeper defense cuts, Gates listed our nation’s security challenges as being “global terrorist networks, rising military powers, nuclear-armed rogue states and much, much more.”

Read on: www.worldpoliticsreview.com/articles/7502/the-new-rules-u-s-defense-cuts-a-step-in-the-right-direction

Empire of Bases 2.0

Why Nobody – Even the President – Knows How Many Bases We Have Overseas

CBS News
By Nick Turse
January 10, 2011

The United States has 460 bases overseas! It has 507 permanent bases! What is the U.S doing with more than 560 foreign bases? Why does it have 662 bases abroad? Does the United States really have more than 1,000 military bases across the globe?

In a world of statistics and precision, a world in which “accountability” is now a Washington buzzword, a world where all information is available at the click of a mouse, there’s one number no American knows. Not the president. Not the Pentagon. Not the experts. No one.

The man who wrote the definitive book on it didn’t know for sure. The Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times columnist didn’t even come close. Yours truly has written numerous articles on U.S. military bases and even part of a book on the subject, but failed like the rest.

There are more than 1,000 U.S. military bases dotting the globe. To be specific, the most accurate count is 1,077. Unless it’s 1,088. Or, if you count differently, 1,169. Or even 1,180. Actually, the number might even be higher. Nobody knows for sure.

Keeping Count

In a recent op-ed piece, New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof made a trenchant point: “The United States maintains troops at more than 560 bases and other sites abroad, many of them a legacy of a world war that ended 65 years ago. Do we fear that if we pull our bases from Germany, Russia might invade?”

For years, the late Chalmers Johnson, the man who literally wrote the book on the U.S. military’s empire of bases, The Sorrows of Empire, made the same point and backed it with the most detailed research on the globe-spanning American archipelago of bases that has ever been assembled. Several years ago, after mining the Pentagon’s own publicly-available documents, Johnson wrote, “[T]he United States maintains 761 active military ‘sites’ in foreign countries. (That’s the Defense Department’s preferred term, rather than ‘bases,’ although bases are what they are.)”

Recently, the Pentagon updated its numbers on bases and other sites, and they have dropped. Whether they’ve fallen to the level advanced by Kristof, however, is a matter of interpretation. According to the Department of Defense’s 2010 Base Structure Report, the U.S. military now maintains 662 foreign sites in 38 countries around the world. Dig into that report more deeply, though, and Grand Canyon-sized gaps begin to emerge. …

Read on: www.cbsnews.com/stories/2011/01/10/opinion/main7229341.shtml

After New START: Where Does Nuclear Disarmament Go From Here?

History News Network
By Lawrence S. Wittner
January 3, 2011

Dr. Wittner is Professor of History at the State University of New York/Albany. His latest book is Confronting the Bomb: A Short History of the World Nuclear Disarmament Movement (Stanford University Press).

With U.S. Senate ratification of the New START treaty on December 22, supporters of nuclear disarmament won an important victory. Signed by President Barack Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev last April, the treaty commits the two nations to cut the number of their deployed strategic (i.e. long-range) nuclear warheads to 1,550 each—a reduction of 30 percent in the number of these weapons of mass destruction. By providing for both a cutback in nuclear weapons and an elaborate inspection system to enforce it, New START is the most important nuclear disarmament treaty for a generation.

Nevertheless, the difficult battle to secure Senate ratification indicates that making further progress on nuclear disarmament will not be easy. Treaty ratification requires a positive vote by two-thirds of the Senate and, to secure the necessary Republican support, Obama promised nearly $185 billion over the next decade for “modernizing” the U.S. nuclear weapons production complex and nuclear weapons delivery vehicles. Even with this enormous concession to nuclear enthusiasts—a hefty “bribe,” in the view of unhappy arms control and disarmament organizations—Senator Jon Kyl, the Republican point man on the issue, continued to oppose New START and ultimately voted against it. So did most other Republican senators, including Mitch McConnell (Senate Republican leader) and John McCain (the latest Republican presidential candidate). Leading candidates for the GOP presidential nomination in 2012, including Mitt Romney and Sarah Palin, also opposed the treaty. As a result, New START squeaked through the Senate by a narrow margin. With six additional Republicans entering the Senate in January, treaty ratification will become much harder. …

Read on: www.hnn.us/articles/134897.html

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