The logistics of running an empire took a different tack as World War II ended and the Cold War began. Colonialism collapsed under its own weight as Britain, France and other European nations lost their possessions across the globe to revolutions and independence movements. When Egyptian leader Gamal Abdel-Nassar seized control of the Suez Canal in 1956, there was an undeniable power vacuum in this region of the world ��" the United States and the Sino-Soviet bloc had already begun to rearrange the pieces on the chess board of empires. The US policy of establishing military bases on foreign soil marked a trend in imperialist expansion, which moved away from colonialism. This stratagem of military bases was partly how the United States began to assert itself as a superpower, and through a more detached approach than maintaining colonies. Colonies, which require administration, budgets and policing, are vulnerable to sedition. The United States today stables armour, personnel, aircraft and sundry military supplies in about 1,000 military bases outside its borders, and in about 150 nations. Further numbers become staggering. Infrastructure ��" in the form of over half a million buildings with utilities at these foreign bases ��" is conservatively estimated by the US Department of Defence to be worth over $700 billion. And of course secret bases in Afghanistan and Iraq, inter alia, do not answer to congressional budget reviews. Like Germany, where there remain some 50,000 US troops, Iraq and Afghanistan should expect to see their US military bases operational for decades to come, if trends persist. And trends are expected to persist. Balad Air Base near Baghdad is one of the ‘mega bases' in that theatre, holding not just troops and munitions, but private contractors in the form of fortified fast food and retail outlets: Pizza Hut, Burger King and Subway restaurants, along with sprawling shopping centres. Seen in the desert from the air after dark, "the base resembles Las Vegas... where the lights never go out". David Vine has spent much time and intellectual energy researching the joint British-American military base on the island of Diego Garcia, which is strategically located in the middle of the Indian Ocean, a thousand miles south of India. Vine tells us that "the military's goal is to be able to run the planet from Guam and Diego Garcia by 2015". After a controversial depopulation of Diego Rivera's two thousand inhabitants, starting in early 1972, the military established an operational communications station there that was able to fly surveillance aircraft for Israel by the time of the October 1973 Arab-Israeli War. Today, the island is home to one of five monitoring stations for the Global Positioning System, long-range bombers, submarines and missiles. Diego Garcia is also a crucial mid-ocean refuelling station, and serves as home to a major invasion force at the ready, with tanks, armoured personnel carriers and its own mobile field hospital. The island base was used as support for invasions in the Persian Gulf, Afghanistan and Iraq. Vine, an anthropologist, has documented the stories of the displaced islanders, called Chagossians, and their forced migration. Diasporas and refugee studies are certainly sad stories often filled with despair, confusion and disorientation. Some groups have been more resilient than others, and are able to prosper after resettlement. Sadly, this has not been the case with Diego Garcia's Chagossian population ��" uneducated plantation farmers who were forcibly taken to, and left unwelcomed in, the islands of Mauritius and Seychelles. Vine, like many left-leaning academics, views the world through the narrow prism of imperialism, and is dismissive of the pragmatism that comes with Realpolitik. And though there are legitimate criticisms of an established network of foreign soil military bases worldwide, Vine does not offer an alternative means for protecting US interests. David Vine Island of Shame: The Secret History of the US Military Base on Diego Garcia. Published by Princeton University Press 259 pages $29.95
Willows is a contributing writer to The Egyptian Gazette and Egyptian Mail. He studied at the American University in Cairo and now lives in Toronto.
