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Base Politics: Democratic Change and the U.S. Military Overseas Hardcover – April 15, 2008
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According to the Department of Defense's 2004 Base Structure Report, the United States officially maintains 860 overseas military installations and another 115 on noncontinental U.S. territories. Over the last fifteen years the Department of Defense has been moving from a few large-footprint bases to smaller and much more numerous bases across the globe. This so-called lily-pad strategy, designed to allow high-speed reactions to military emergencies anywhere in the world, has provoked significant debate in military circles and sometimes-fierce contention within the polity of the host countries.
In Base Politics, Alexander Cooley examines how domestic politics in different host countries, especially in periods of democratic transition, affect the status of U.S. bases and the degree to which the U.S. military has become a part of their local and national landscapes. Drawing on exhaustive field research in different host nations across East Asia and Southern Europe, as well as the new postcommunist base hosts in the Black Sea and Central Asia, Cooley offers an original and provocative account of how and why politicians in host countries contest or accept the presence of the U.S. military on their territory.
Overseas bases, Cooley shows, are not merely installations that serve a military purpose. For host governments and citizens, U.S. bases are also concrete institutions and embodiments of U.S. power, identity, and diplomacy. Analyzing the degree to which overseas bases become enmeshed in local political agendas and interests, Base Politics will be required reading for anyone interested in understanding the extent―and limits―of America's overseas military influence.
- Print length328 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherCornell University Press
- Publication dateApril 15, 2008
- Reading age18 years and up
- Dimensions6 x 1.12 x 9 inches
- ISBN-100801446058
- ISBN-13978-0801446054
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Editorial Reviews
Review
Offers feasible pros and cons for both sides of the debate on U.S. basing in allied nations.
-- Col. Gordon W. Keiser ― Proceedings (USNI)Review
Will prove helpful to defence officials and analysts grappling with the issue of how basing strategies might best support security interests... well researched and well crafted, and provides useful frameworks for thinking about base strategies.
-- Survival, Oct-Nov 2008From the Back Cover
"In Base Politics, Alexander Cooley describes the conditions under which U.S. military basing arrangements in host countries become politicized. He shows that such conflicts often take place in countries that are making a transition to democracy. This is a very important book that highlights how our interests and our ideals can often come into conflict."--Michael Desch, Robert M. Gates Chair in Intelligence and National Security Decision-Making, Texas A&M University
About the Author
Alexander Cooley is Associate Professor of Political Science at Barnard College and Columbia University's School of International and Public Affairs. He is the author of Logics of Hierarchy: The Organization of Empires, States, and Military Occupations, also from Cornell, cowinner of the 2006 Marshall Shulman Prize given by the AAASS. His writings on base-related issues have been published in the New York Times, International Herald Tribune and Foreign Affairs.
Product details
- Publisher : Cornell University Press (April 15, 2008)
- Language : English
- Hardcover : 328 pages
- ISBN-10 : 0801446058
- ISBN-13 : 978-0801446054
- Reading age : 18 years and up
- Item Weight : 1.3 pounds
- Dimensions : 6 x 1.12 x 9 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #1,551,128 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #1,875 in National & International Security (Books)
- #8,994 in Political Science (Books)
- #13,507 in American Military History
- Customer Reviews:
About the author

Alexander Cooley is Director of Columbia University's Harriman Institute for the Study of Russia, Eurasia and Eastern Europe and the Claire Tow Professor of Political Science at Barnard College, Columbia University in New York. His research examines the sovereignty and political development of the former Soviet states, with a focus on Central Asia and the Caucasus.
Professor Cooley is the author or co-author of six books, including Logics of Hierarchy:The Organization of Empires, States and Military Occupations (Cornell University Press 2005); Base Politics: Democratic Change and the U.S. Military Overseas; and Contracting States: Sovereign Transfers in International Relations, co-authored with Hendrik Spruyt. He also co-edited, with Jack Snyder, Ranking the World: Grading States as a Tool of Global Governance (Cambridge 2015).
Cooley's 2012 book on the emerging multipolar politics of of Central Asia- Great Games, Local Rules: the New Great Power Contest for Central Asia- was published by Oxford University Press. It received an Honorable Mention from the Central Eurasian Studies Society and was described by Asia Policy as "possibly the most cogent critique of post-Cold War orthodoxy published to date."
Professor Cooley has testified for Congressional committees about Eurasian issues and he currently serves on a diverse range of international advisory committees, project boards and working groups engaged with the region. He is a regular commentator for international media outlets and his opinion pieces have appeared in the New York Times, Foreign Affairs and Foreign Policy. His work has been supported with fellowships from the Open Society Foundations, Carnegie Corporation, Smith Richardson Foundation, and the German Marshall Fund of the United States, among others. Cooley earned his Ph.D. (1999) from Columbia University.
Professor Cooley regularly gives lectures and presentations on his research, some of which are detailed on his Amazon Author's page. His commentary on Eurasian politics can be followed on Twitter at: http://twitter.com/CooleyOnEurasia
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