After some research, I found it interesting to find that the Pentagon has not decided which bases to close overseas, but with BRAC they have decided who is on the CONUS list. Obviously people a lot smarter than me think a mistake has been made.
"Two key House Representatives, Joel Hefley, R-Colorado, and Gene Taylor, D-Mississippi, want, at minimum, to postpone BRAC-05 until at least 2007. Hefley commented: “The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, combined with US moves to pull troops from bases in Europe, justify the delay. . . . The fact is it would be irresponsible to make irreversible base closure decisions with so many significant issues remaining unresolved."
Here are some excerpts of interest. Or you can follow the link for the full article.
Overseas Military Base Closures
Col Stephen R. Schwalbe, USAF
We are living in a revolution, and hardly anyone has noticed. In just three months since the end of the Iraq war, the Pentagon has announced the essential evacuation of the US military from its air bases in Saudi Arabia, from the Demilitarized Zone in Korea, and from the vast Incirlik air base in Turkey – in addition to a radical drawdown of US military personnel in Germany, the mainstay of the Great American Wall since 1945.[Charles Krauthammer, 2003]
The US military commanders during Operation Desert Shield were very frustrated that it took as long as six months to move equipment for US armored divisions out of Germany and deliver them to the Persian Gulf.13 As such, the DOD’s global posture review will be an important factor during its development of the BRAC list that the congressional commission will vet. Hence, the disposition of overseas military bases has a direct effect on the disposition of domestic bases.
There are three significant issues today regarding the BRAC-05 process. Presented in no particular order, the first has to do with the timing of BRAC-05 with regard to the disposition of the military bases overseas. Raymond DuBois, the Deputy Undersecretary of Defense for Installations and Environment, was Defense Secretary Rumsfeld’s point man for BRAC-05. Dubois told the media that: “Rumsfeld promised Congress that he would rearrange and reduce the number of US bases overseas before cutting domestic bases through BRAC.”
Yet, despite the logic of it and the promises made, determining the overseas base posture prior to determining the stateside base posture is actually not what is going to happen.
In fact, Col George Latham, the 104th Area Support Group Commander, took the counter-intuitive position stating: “it makes little sense to close overseas bases before Congress announces its round of stateside base closures…. What politician in his right mind would want to close something before then?”22 Undersecretary Feith told his German counterparts, according to the Wall Street Journal, that America will start pulling out its armored units after BRAC-05 is finalized (in late 2005), eventually withdrawing up to 40,000 troops from Germany by 2006.23
Although DOD has not published a national military strategy (NMS) this millennium, the current version revolves around the numbers “1-4-2-1.” The military is expected to defend the homeland (1); deter aggression in four world regions (4); swiftly defeat adversaries in two other conflicts (2); and, conduct a limited number of small operations (1). This strategy was not really specific enough to design a force structure around for the near future. So, Defense Secretary Rumsfeld created another number catch phrase (patterned after long-distance telephone commercials) to complement the current strategy to give the military services more concrete guidelines for what is needed to fight in the 21st century: “10-30-30.” The services must each be able to deploy to a distant theater within 10 days, defeat an enemy within 30 days, and be ready for an additional fight within another 30 days. This is the new benchmark by which the US Armed Forces will be evaluated against for the near future. Unfortunately, it is not achievable with today’s transport capabilities, and the Army is still too heavy.
Finally, Bradley Graham of the Washington Post interpreted the Pentagon’s approach by writing:
The administration still intends to retain a ring of permanent military hubs in closely allied countries…. But, many other bases the US has relied on would be supplanted by a number of spare ‘forward operating sites’ such as those planned for Eastern Europe. They would be supported by small support staffs. Other countries would be designated as ‘cooperative security locations,’ providing staging areas that US forces could occupy quickly in a conflict. These locations would have no permanent US military presence but could be used periodically for training exercises.38
Given this past experience, General Martin recommended that: “[F]or every base needed, the United States probably should cultivate relationships with about three nations. Further, the United States will need two to three bases in the region to support contingencies. . . . To conduct a major campaign, airpower will need between 15 and 20 air bases within a major region. . . . We should cultivate the number of relationships to allow only three or four bases in each [nation].”54 Doing the math using Martin’s numbers, one soon realizes that the Air Force will need to have some sort of air base arrangement with just about every country in the world with suitable airfields.
Finally, Defense Secretary Rumsfeld has been giving the impression that none of these new military bases is permanent. Chicago Tribune correspondent Michael Kilian reported that Rumsfeld rejected the notion that the United States is interested in a permanent large-scale presence in the Middle East and Central Asia. Rumsfeld reportedly stated that once the Taliban and al-Qaeda have been defeated, the United States will have “no bases” in Afghanistan. Currently, the United States has military bases in just about every country in both regions. While visiting Uzbekistan in February 2004, he said: “We have no plans to put permanent bases in this part of the world.” But, as Kilian commented: “Some big, permanent bases in the region are likely.”60
Secretary of State Colin Powell also commented on the new overseas military base disposition stating: “What we are interested in are, perhaps, forward operating locations that we could train at temporarily, or we can have agreements at particular airfields that make it easier for us to deploy to particular areas of potential crisis.”61 Instead of deploying overseas for years sometimes with families, troops would deploy for three to six months without their families to military installations lacking the creature comforts of today’s large bases in Europe. Brian Whitmore, Boston Globe correspondent, quoted one US military official as saying that using the facilities: “will be sort of like opening and closing your beach house.”62
Two key House Representatives, Joel Hefley, R-Colorado, and Gene Taylor, D-Mississippi, want, at minimum, to postpone BRAC-05 until at least 2007. Hefley commented: “The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, combined with US moves to pull troops from bases in Europe, justify the delay. . . . The fact is it would be irresponsible to make irreversible base closure decisions with so many significant issues remaining unresolved
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