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Close the US Military Bases in Asia
With America’s 750 or so overseas military bases in around 80 countries, it’s high time to close these bases, pocket the saving, and return to diplomacy. Our bases across Asia are a good place to start.
Apr 22, 2025
President Donald Trump is again loudly complaining that the U.S. military bases in Asia are too costly for the U.S. to bear. As part of the new round of tariff negotiations with Japan and Korea, Trump is calling on Japan and Korea to pay for stationing the US troops. Here’s a much better idea: close the bases and bring the U.S. servicemen home.
Trump implies that the U.S. is providing a great service to Japan and Korea by stationing 50,000 troops in Japan and nearly 30,000 in Korea. Yet these countries do not need the U.S. to defend themselves. They are wealthy and can certainly provide their own defense. Far more importantly, diplomacy can ensure the peace in northeast Asia far more effectively and far less expensively than U.S. troops.
The U.S. acts as if Japan needs to be defended against China. Let’s have a look. During the past 1,000 years, during which time China was the region’s dominant power for all but the last 150 years, how many times did China attempt to invade Japan? If you answered zero, you are correct. China did not attempt to invade Japan on a single occasion.
You might quibble. What about the two attempts in 1274 and 1281, roughly 750 years ago? It’s true that when the Mongols temporarily ruled China between 1271 and 1368, the Mongols twice sent expeditionary fleets to invade Japan, and both times were defeated by a combination of typhoons (known in Japanese lore as the Kamikaze winds) and by Japanese coastal defenses.
Japan, on the other hand, made several attempts to attack or conquer China. In 1592, the arrogant and erratic Japanese military leader Toyotomi Hideyoshi launched an invasion of Korea with the goal of conquering Ming China. He did not get far, dying in 1598 without even having subdued Korea. In 1894-5, Japan invaded and defeated China in the Sino-Japanese war, taking Taiwan as a Japanese colony. In 1931, Japan invaded northeast China (Manchuria) and created the Japanese colony of Manchukuo. In 1937, Japan invaded China, starting World War II in the Pacific region.
Nobody thinks that Japan is going to invade China today, and there is no rhyme, reason, or historical precedent to believe that China is going to invade Japan. Japan has no need for the US military bases to protect itself from China.
The same is true of China and Korea. During the past 1,000 years, China never invaded Korea, except on one occasion: when the U.S. threatened China. China entered the war in late 1950 on the side of North Korea to fight the U.S. troops advancing northward towards the Chinese border. At the time, U.S. General Douglas MacArthur recklessly recommended attacking China with atomic bombs. MacArthur also proposed to support Chinese nationalist forces, then based in Taiwan, to invade the Chinese mainland. President Harry Truman, thank God, rejected MacArthur’s recommendations.
South Korea needs deterrence against North Korea, to be sure, but that would be achieved far more effectively and credibly through a regional security system including China, Japan, Russia, North Korea, South Korea, than through the presence of the U.S., which has repeatedly stoked North Korea’s nuclear arsenal and military build-up, not diminished it.
In fact, the U.S. military bases in East Asia are really for the U.S. projection of power, not for the defense of Japan or Korea. This is even more reason why they should be removed. Though the U.S. claims that its bases in East Asia are defensive, they are understandably viewed by China and North Korea as a direct threat – for example, by creating the possibility of a decapitation strike, and by dangerously lowering the response times for China and North Korea to a U.S. provocation or some kind of misunderstanding. Russia vociferously opposed NATO in Ukraine for the same justifiable reasons. NATO has frequently intervened in U.S.-backed regime-change operations and has placed missile systems dangerously close to Russia. Indeed, just as Russia feared, NATO has actively participated in the Ukraine War, providing armaments, strategy, intelligence, and even programming and tracking for missile strikes deep inside of Russia.
Note that Trump is currently obsessed with two small port facilities in Panama owned by a Hong Kong company, claiming that China is threatening U.S. security (!), and wants the facilities sold to an American buyer. The U.S. on the other hand surrounds China not with two tiny port facilities but with major U.S. military bases in Japan, South Korea, Guam, the Philippines, and the Indian Ocean near to China’s international sea lanes.
The best strategy for the superpowers is to stay out of each other’s lanes. China and Russia should not open military bases in the Western Hemisphere, to put it mildly. The last time that was tried, when the Soviet Union placed nuclear weapons in Cuba in 1962, the world nearly ended in nuclear annihilation. (See Martin Sherwin’s remarkable book, Gambling with Armageddon for the shocking details on how close the world came to nuclear Armageddon). Neither China nor Russia shows the slightest inclination to do so today, despite all of the provocations of facing US bases in their own neighborhoods.
Trump is looking for ways to save money – an excellent idea given that the U.S. federal budget is hemorrhaging $2 trillion dollars a year, more than 6% of U.S. GDP. Closing the U.S. overseas military bases would be an excellent place to start.
Trump even seemed to point that way at the start of his second term, but the Congressional Republicans have called for increases, not decreases, in military spending. Yet with America’s 750 or so overseas military bases in around 80 countries, it’s high time to close these bases, pocket the saving, and return to diplomacy. Getting the host countries to pay for something that doesn’t help them or the U.S. is a huge drain of time, diplomacy, and resources, both for the U.S. and the host countries.
The U.S. should make a basic deal with China, Russia, and other powers. “You keep your military bases out of our neighborhood, and we’ll keep our military bases out of yours.” Basic reciprocity among the major powers would save trillions of dollars of military outlays over the coming decade and, more importantly, would push the Doomsday Clock back from 89 seconds to nuclear Armageddon.
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Survivor of US Atomic Bombing Makes Plea to World With Nobel Acceptance Speech
"Let us all strive together to ensure that humanity is not destroyed by nuclear weapons, and to create a human society where there are no nuclear weapons and no war," said Terumi Tanaka.
Dec 11, 2024
Accepting the 2024 Nobel Peace Prize on behalf of the grassroots Japanese anti-nuclear group he co-chairs, Terumi Tanaka warned on Tuesday night that the world is moving in the opposite direction than the one hibakusha—survivors of the U.S. bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki—have demanded for nearly seven decades.
Tanaka is a co-chair of Nihon Hidankyo, an organization founded in 1956 by survivors of the bombings that had killed an estimated 140,000 people in Hiroshima and 70,000 in Nagasaki, with the death toll continuing to rise in later years as people succumbed to the effects of radiation.
The group accepted the Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo, with the Nobel Committee honoring Nihon Hidankyo "for its efforts to achieve a world free of nuclear weapons."
The organization aims to maintain a taboo around the use of nuclear weapons, which have only been used in combat by the U.S. in Japan in 1945.
Tanaka warned that there are currently 12,000 nuclear warheads in the arsenals of the U.S., Russia, China, and six other countries, and 4,000 of those "could be launched immediately."
"This means that the damage that occurred in Hiroshima and Nagasaki could be multiplied by hundreds or even thousands," said Tanaka, who is 92. "Let us all strive together to ensure that humanity is not destroyed by nuclear weapons, and to create a human society where there are no nuclear weapons and no war."
"It is the heartfelt desire of the hibakusha that, rather than depending on the theory of nuclear deterrence, which assumes the possession and use of nuclear weapons, we must not allow the possession of a single nuclear weapon," he added.
"I hope that the belief that nuclear weapons cannot—and must not—co-exist with humanity will take firm hold among citizens of the nuclear weapon states and their allies, and that this will become a force for change in the nuclear policies of their governments."
Tanaka said that "the nuclear taboo threatens to be broken," as evidenced by Israeli Heritage Minister Amihay Eliyahu's recent comment that a nuclear attack on Gaza would be "one way" to defeat Hamas.
"I am infinitely saddened and angered" by such statements, said Tanaka.
He described his experience as a 13-year-old when the U.S. bombed Nagasaki, just a couple of miles away from his family's house, which was crushed by the impact.
He said he later found the charred body of one of his aunts and saw his grandfather close to death from the burns that covered his body.
"The deaths I witnessed at that time could hardly be described as human deaths," Tanaka said. "There were hundreds of people suffering in agony, unable to receive any kind of medical attention."
"I hope that the belief that nuclear weapons cannot—and must not—co-exist with humanity will take firm hold among citizens of the nuclear weapon states and their allies, and that this will become a force for change in the nuclear policies of their governments," said Tanaka.
The International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) applauded Nihon Hidankyo and the hibakusha "for their resilience and willingness to share their stories over and over again, so that the world may learn and come together to say 'never again.'"
"It was their courage that enabled the [Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons] to be adopted, which represents the first progress on nuclear disarmament in decades," said Melissa Parke, executive director of ICAN, referring to the treaty that's been ratified by 73 countries.
"Listening to Mr. Tanaka describe the horrendous effects on his family and city when the Americans dropped their atomic bomb should convince world leaders they have to go beyond simply congratulating the hibakusha of Nihon Hidankyo for this award. They must honor them by doing what the hibakusha have long called for—urgently getting rid of nuclear weapons," said Parke. "That is the only way to ensure that what Mr. Tanaka and the other hibakusha have been through never happens to anyone ever again. As long as any nuclear weapons remain anywhere, they are bound one day to be used, whether by design or accident."
Jørgen Watne Frydnes, chair of the Nobel Committee, condemned the nine nuclear powers for "modernizing and building up their nuclear arsenals."
"It is naive to believe our civilization can survive a world order in which global security depends on nuclear weapons," Frydnes said. "The world is not meant to be a prison in which we await collective annihilation."
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100 Years After Mussolini's Dictatorship, a Trumpian US Flirts With the Long Night of Authoritarianism
The comparisons between Mussolini's declaration of dictatorship in 1925 and Trump’s re-election are striking.
Nov 30, 2024
In June 1924, Benito Mussolini—the Prime Minister of a tottering Liberal Italy—ordered the assassination of a left-wing Member of Parliament, Giacomo Matteotti. When Matteotti’s body was discovered two months later in a wooded area north of Rome, political rumors and controversies exploded into a full-fledged political crisis for the National Fascist Party. Facing the potential collapse of his coalition government, and with it the loss of his prime ministry, Mussolini resolved to confront his party’s political crisis headlong.
On January 3, 1925, Mussolini delivered a contentious speech in the Chamber of Deputies, intending to bring about a resolution, one way or another, to the so-called “Matteotti Crisis.”
“Gentlemen! The speech that I am about to deliver to you should not, strictly speaking, be considered a parliamentary address,” he arrogantly explained, since a “speech of this type could lead to a vote on policy.” “Let it be known,” the Prime Minister continued, “that I do not seek such a vote” as “I have had too many of those.”
Having established his decidedly anti-democratic intentions, Mussolini explained to his colleagues that Article 47 of the Italian Constitution allowed for the members of the Chamber to “impeach the King’s Ministers” and “bring them before the High Court of Justice” for any high crimes and/or misdemeanors committed. “I formally ask you,” the Duce-in-waiting boldly proclaimed, “is there, in this Chamber or outside of it, someone who would like to apply Article 47 [to me]?”
Mussolini’s cynical invitation, of course, was imbued with the not-so-subtle suggestion of reprisals for anyone who dared speak out against the National Fascist Party, its political violence during the previous six or so years, and no less important, its authoritarian Leader.
Unsurprisingly, nobody stood up to apply Article 47 to Mussolini. And in the absence of any political or judicial consequences for his involvement in the political violence leading up to and including Matteotti’s assassination, Mussolini demonstrated himself to be above law and order in Italy. In short, Mussolini was no longer a Prime Minister—he was a dictator.
During the subsequent two years, a now unleashed National Fascist Party utilized its position to pass a series of laws—known as the “Extremely Fascist Laws”—which brought about an end to multi-party democracy and civil liberties in Italy and, in their place, the legal foundations for a single-party Fascist State.
One century later, Mussolini’s declaration of dictatorship, which inaugurated twenty or so years of democratic backsliding and authoritarianism in Europe, continues to haunt the halls of power in liberal democracies throughout the Western world.
The recent re-election of Donald J. Trump as President of the United States of America serves as a chilling reminder of the appeal of anti-democratic strongmen in times of social, political, and economic flux. Similar to Mussolini one hundred years ago, Trump has demonstrated a contempt for the Constitution and the universal application of law and order.
In a December 2023 exchange with Fox News personality Sean Hannity, for instance, Trump pompously proclaimed his intentions to serve as a dictator on “day one” of his presidency. Many of his followers, too, have glibly embraced this unconstitutional and anti-democratic political rhetoric, going so far as to produce celebratory campaign t-shirts bearing the slogan: “Dictator on Day One.”
In July 2024, moreover, Trump informed the attendees of the Turning Point Believers' Summit in West Palm Beach, Florida that, were evangelical conservatives to help him win the general election in November, “you won’t have to vote any more.”
Perhaps equally as concerning, Trump’s “Make America Great Again” movement has resonated with American neo-fascist groups, including Patriot Front, which frequently holds public marches and rallies bearing MAGA-adjacent slogans, and neo-Nazi groups, one of which recently marched through Columbus, Ohio wearing blackshirts and flying swastika flags, ostensibly in celebration of Trump’s re-election.
Stemming from his roles in the January 2021 MAGA-led insurrection at the Capitol Building in Washington D.C. and the subsequent standoff with the FBI over his illegal possession of classified documents, Trump was, leading up to November 5th, facing 91 felony charges, which, if convicted, would have almost certainly resulted in substantial legal consequences for the twice-impeached POTUS. With his re-election, however, these charges will almost certainly be dropped, due to a longstanding Department of Justice policy of applying legal immunity to serving POTUSes. Like Mussolini before him, Trump is now effectively above law and order in the United States.
In addition to winning the presidency, the now MAGA-dominated Republican Party won majorities in both the House of Representatives and the Senate, providing Trump with what could very well turn out to be a “rubber stamp” legislator for his far-right objectives.
Thus, when Trump is inaugurated as the United States’ 47th president on January 20, 2025—merely three weeks following the centennial of Mussolini’s declaration of dictatorship in Italy’s Chamber of Deputies—he will be in the position to strong arm political, judicial, and military power without any meaningful checks and balances. He will be immune from prosecution while in office, which will motivate him to fulfill the promise he made to the Turning Point Believers’ Summit: to gerrymander our political system in a way that precludes any electoral opposition to the MAGA movement moving forward. Trump will be, as he promised in December 2023, a dictator on “day one.”
And with these, and many more, authoritarian promises fulfilled, Americans will be faced with a significant, and rather urgent, question: If the comparisons between Mussolini’s declaration of dictatorship and Trump’s re-election are so striking, as I have insisted, we may well be witnessing the twilight of American democracy, and the beginning of the long night of authoritarianism in the United States.
And, in a related vein, with authoritarian movements popping up everywhere across the Western world, and the steady erosion of support for international law and order and human rights, are we building a global order based around the liberal democratic values of the United Nations Charter? Or are we increasingly living—like the Europeans of the 1920s and 1930s—in another interwar crisis?
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