Pentagon Targets Bases for Closures

The US Defense Department announced last week that it wants to close some 33 military bases and restructure around 775 smaller sites. The move will save $50 billion over the next several years, with the closures to be completed by 2012. Defense Secretary Field Marshall Donald von Rumsfeld says the idea is not to save money (although that is a consideration) but rather to move military assets to where they need to be to fight terror instead of the now-ended Cold War. Militarily, he may be right, but politically, the debate is about jobs, not security.

The truth is that the US military is still largely deployed for an impending fight with the Soviet Union. Weapons systems continue to turn up in appropriations that would be great defending central Germany from the onslaught of Soviet armor. US military casualties in Iraq are evacuated to US bases in Germany because . . . well, because that's where the bases are. As the Field Marshall himself has said, "Our current arrangements, designed for the Cold War, must give way to the new demands of the war against extremism and other evolving 21st century challenges." Unfortunately, he has undermined his own plans for a lighter, faster, more flexible military by pushing the US into a 19th century occupation of Iraq.

But why care if military bases are in one place or another? The answer is jobs. When the New London submarine base in Connecticut shuts down, 5,000 jobs will go out the window. But that isn't the way protectors of the base attack the issue -- they are more disingenuous. Duncan Hunter (R-CA) chairman of the House Armed Services Committee said that he opposed the closure of the New London Connecticut submarine base and training center "from a national security standpoint." He claims, "undersea warfare is now and in the future will be critical to our survival as a nation."

In fact, submarines have no value against an enemy without a blue water navy or large merchant marine -- Al Qaeda and Iraq don't, neither does Iran nor North Korea. As an undetectable weapons platform, air assets are vastly superior in mobility, vulnerability, and staffing requirements. Congressman Hunter couldn't be further off the mark -- submarines are a waste of US taxpayer dollars, funds that could be used to protect American lives from terrorist attacks.

Looking ahead, the debate will be arguments over employment posing as arguments over national security. Olympia Snowe (R-ME) said the proposed closure of the Portsmouth Naval Yard was a "travesty and a strategic blunder of epic proportions on the part of the Defense Department." Piffle. A "strategic blunder of epic proportions" describes the Nazis failure to stop the Dunkirk evacuations, or the invasion of Russia by Napoleon, or the Roman stupidity at Cannae in the Punic Wars. It is too great and grand a description for shutting down a naval yard that the nation doesn't need.


© Copyright 2005 by The Kensington Review, J. Myhre, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent.
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