The fiery meeting between presidents Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Donald Trump at the White House on 28 February was a salutary shock. It was painful to watch, but dispelled any illusions. No longer can we pretend that Trump is a lost sheep who can be tempted back in the Nato fold with the promise of a trip to Buckingham Palace. Nor should we assume that when the US votes with Russia and Belarus at the United Nations it has merely wandered into the wrong lobby. Our former ally has changed sides. America is our ally no longer.
Nato: ignoring the warnings
We have had warnings before, but we chose to ignore them. Now, we can no longer afford to do so. There are military bases on British soil that belong to a foreign power. If this power no longer helps to protect us, we must ask them to leave. These bases are the historical remnants of a deal made long ago between Harold Macmillan and Dwight D Eisenhower – the Mutual Defence Agreement, later absorbed into Nato.
In the 1950s, US rockets were less powerful than Soviet ones and needed to reach Moscow from launch pads on the other side of the Atlantic. Britain was then a willing partner. Today, there are six air force bases in East Anglia, hosting both British and US aircraft and missiles. There are many more in Germany, the relics of the Cold War which ended a short lifetime ago. The idea that the US generously gave her military services to Europe as some kind of martial aid is fanciful. We were defending our liberal democracies together. That is no longer the case.
The US empire of bases
Let us not be beastly to the MAGA-nauts. We should treat them with the respect they deserve. The US is undeniably overstretched, spending vast sums maintaining bases around the world, whose strategic value is at best speculative. Wikipedia lists 740 US bases, but other sources, including Patterson Deppen, suggest the number is over a thousand. These include naval, military and air force bases, satellite tracking stations, missile launchers and intelligence facilities.
The US maintains an empire of military bases, without an empire to back them up. They depend upon the goodwill of host nations – a precarious foundation that cannot be guaranteed. In some parts of the world, these bases are resented and even hated. As a result, most are designed as self-contained units, with cinemas, restaurants and sports facilities. Unauthorised personnel are prohibited.
According to Chalmers Johnson in Sorrows of Empire (2004), the US taxpayer footed the bill for 273,000 bottles of Native Tan sunblock lotion for troops, along with all the other expenses of the second Iraq war. Private US companies are usually the contracted suppliers. The Pentagon likes to ensure that any dollars spent abroad return to such established American companies as Kellogg and Brown & Root, a subsidiary of Halliburton, where the former vice president Dick Cheney was once in charge.
A crumbling alliance
Host countries were historically reassured by the promise of US protection from terrorist organisations or another major foreign power, such as Russia. However, the first Trump regime severely tested this by unilaterally and abruptly abandoning Afghanistan – although the chaotic departure ultimately occurred under Biden. If the US ignores its commitments to Ukraine and Europe, who will trust its word in future? It will have difficulty in finding friends, except among those who are similarly isolated.
From Trump’s perspective, this may not seem to matter. Why bother with a satellite tracking station in St Helena – a British overseas territory the size of the Isle of Wight with fewer than 5,000 inhabitants? It monitors activities in the South Atlantic, together with satellite signals from many sources, and conveys the information through an optical fibre cable to South Africa and Europe. Similarly, the tracking station on Ascension Island may only be noticed when it ceases to function.
Two large US bomber airfields and naval support facilities exist in Diego Garcia (Chagos Islands) – which Britain is trying to return to Mauritius – and in Guam, a former Spanish colony acquired by the US after the second world war. The might of the US empire of bases has rested upon such obscure and rocky foundations. It was held together by the belief that, broadly speaking, America was a force for good, leading liberal democracies against oligarchies and dictatorships.
Trump’s new order
Now, under Trump, the US no longer wishes to play this role. There are better deals to be had. A typical Trumpian gambit was to propose turning Gaza into a Mediterranean playground – after clearing out its 1.5 million Palestinian inhabitants. An alliance with Russia could secure a divided share of the Arctic, giving access to the wealth of natural resources hidden under its sheets of melting ice – ice that will ‘helpfully’ melt faster, thanks to Trump’s reversal of anything remotely climate-conscious. Canada can be annexed and Greenland bought from Denmark. This is geopolitics played like a video game, where once you’ve bought the app, anything is possible.
Europe’s response to Trump
How should Europe respond? We should stick together and not be intimidated. The limits of Russia’s conventional military strength are illustrated by its slow progress in Ukraine. A nation that needs military support from North Korea is stretched beyond its natural limits. Meanwhile, the US maintains a global military presence but relies on allied support.
Professor David Vine, in Base Nation: The United States of War (2015), provides a history of America’s “endless conflicts”, many of which ended in costly failure. The empire of bases is rickety. If the US ceases to behave as a responsible member of Nato, it should be asked to remove its European military bases. If it refuses, it should be denied the essential services that maintain them.
Since 28 February, the Norwegian company Haltbakk Bunkers has refused to refuel and service US warships. Other companies may follow their example. Now is the time for Europe to strengthen its own defences. We cannot predict where the next dictatorship with ambition to take over our world will spring from. But we should not wait to find out.
