Die Geopolitik der US-Stützpunkte: Die „Donroe-Doktrin“ und Chinas Aufstieg verändern Europas militärische Rolle/Übersetzung des Artikels gibt es in den Kommentaren

The news alarmed Europeans: The US announced it would withdraw 5,000 American soldiers from Germany and would not deploy a promised contingent of 4,000 troops to Poland. Later, President Trump did promise Poland additional troops – because he got along so well with the Polish president.

Confusion reigns among the Allies. One thing is certain: the global network of American bases and operations is in flux once again, as always occurs during major geopolitical shifts.

A few thousand more military personnel here or there may not seem significant. The real question, however, is: What do these measures signal? Is Trump simply trying to get revenge on Friedrich Merz for calling the Iran war a strategic mistake? Or is the withdrawal from Europe part of the long-announced „pivot to Asia,“ the shift in strategic focus to the Pacific region, which was decided upon by President Obama back in 2011?

# After the Second World War, the „base empire“ was created.

[Gorana Grgic](https://css.ethz.ch/ueber-uns/personen/dr-gorana-grgic.html) is the head of the Global Security Team at the Center for Security Studies at ETH Zurich. „Yes, the threatened withdrawal from Germany does indeed seem impulsive,“ she says. In the case of Poland, however, the motive is more complex. The American presence on NATO’s eastern flank is part of the deterrent measures that were already implemented after the first Russian invasion of Ukrainian territory in 2014.

It is now becoming increasingly clear that the US is reducing its presence in Europe – supposedly to focus more on Asia. However, the political scientist, who has spent most of her time as a researcher and consultant in Australia and Asia, adds that her contacts in Japan, South Korea, and Singapore are by no means certain that this reorientation is actually taking place. After all, the US recently even withdrew resources from this region – for the war against Iran.

The geopolitics of American military bases has changed dramatically since World War II, influenced by shifting threat perceptions, technological advances, and changes in military doctrines.

At the end of World War II, the USA possessed tens of thousands of large and small facilities in approximately one hundred countries.

With this, Washington created the world’s first „base empire.“ The most important sites initially served to occupy and later to rebuild the defeated Axis powers of Germany and Japan.

# Empire or benevolent hegemon?

With the onset of the Cold War, the bases in the „frontline states“ of Western Europe and East Asia became the military backbone of deterrence and the pushback of the Soviet Union. The largest airbase in Europe was and remains Ramstein, planned by the French in 1949 and built and occupied by the Americans by 1951. In the mid-1980s, 250,000 American soldiers were stationed at over one hundred locations in West Germany.

This global network, however, is not the infrastructure of a classic empire, says Grgic. Unlike earlier empires, which usually established bases after violent conquests, the American presence was often based on defense agreements with sovereign host nations. With regard to Western Europe, the Norwegian historian [Geir Lundestad](https://academic.oup.com/jpr/article-abstract/23/3/263/8368224?redirectedFrom=fulltext) speaks  of an „empire by invitation.“ Military presence goes hand in hand with close economic and political ties.

Grgic acknowledges that the power imbalance has always been a decisive factor, but argues that as a „benevolent hegemon,“ the US has also created public goods such as security and collectively used institutions like NATO, the Bretton Woods system, and the World Trade Organization. However, he concedes that the US’s sometimes ruthless actions in Latin America, which it considers its „backyard,“ are a different matter entirely. „That certainly looks more like imperialism,“ he says.

In some places—for example, in West Germany—American bases also became instruments of soft power. Local youth imitated the „way of life“ exemplified in these Americanized settlements. But there were also conflicts, such as on the Japanese island of Okinawa, where the rape of a girl by American soldiers in the 1990s led to mass protests. Resistance to the military airfield there continues to this day. Most bases are also an economic factor for the local population. However, the hosts often criticize the troops for relying almost exclusively on American goods.

With the end of the Cold War, and especially with the „War on Terror“ declared by the US in 2001 after al-Qaeda’s attack on New York, a major restructuring began. Dozens of bases were closed, including those in the Philippines, South Korea, and Germany, at the fault lines of the East-West confrontation. The wars in the Gulf and Afghanistan further increased the strategic importance of the Middle East.

Under President George W. Bush, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld spearheaded the transformation: from large, permanent garrisons to a more dynamic network of smaller bases. These were often operated jointly with local allies. Depending on the situation and requirements, Washington deployed larger or smaller military contingents.

“This rotation principle has become much more important since then,” says Grgic. Not least because these temporary deployments are cheaper than maintaining large, permanently staffed bases. But this doesn’t apply everywhere: In the Western Hemisphere, which Washington now claims as its sphere of influence with the “Donroe Doctrine,” the US will likely rely on a permanent presence: from the Caribbean to Greenland. “Together with the shift in focus to the Indo-Pacific, this shift in emphasis will be at the expense of the presence in Europe.”

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