Flexible Basing, Base Access Diplomacy, and Their Impact on NATO's Future

ISBN: 1288396260

Author: Meshako, Charles E

Condition: New

The 2006 Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR) calls for the United States to make "long overdue adjustments to U.S. basing by moving away from a static defense in obsolete Cold War garrisons" and moving towards "flexible basing". (Rumsfeld, 2006, v) This shift in overseas basing strategy has been largely uncontested, especially with respect to U.S. military bases in Europe that were designed to counter a threat, a Soviet ground invasion of Western Europe, that has long since evaporated. In the decades to come, the U.S. expects to face threats which are increasingly "unexpected and unpredictable" and the current plans to establish an extensive network of smaller but expandable multipurpose military bases that are positioned throughout the world are designed to specifically address this type of ambiguous threat.