Protesting the Expansion of US Military Bases in Pyeongtaek: A Local Movement in South Korea

2012 ◽  
Vol 111 (4) ◽  
pp. 865-876 ◽  
Author(s):  
Seungsook Moon
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
South Korea ◽  
The United States ◽  
Global Network ◽  
Military Bases ◽  
Us Military ◽  
Military Presence ◽  
Vested Interests ◽  
Local Movement ◽  
Base Politics

Since World War II, US military bases have become a global phenomenon and generated complex responses from their “host” societies. For these past six decades, South Korea has functioned as one of the major hubs of the global network of US military bases, yet organized local movements against US military bases did not develop until the late 1980s when the country began its transition to procedural democracy. This essay examines one of the major antibase movements in South Korea that took place in Pyeongtaek from 2003 through 2007. This local movement is chosen for two reasons. First, the city has become the primary hub of the United States Forces Korea after the restructuring of the global US military presence. Second, the democratic South Korean government’s use of coercive and violent measures in dealing with the local movement sets an alarming precedent for global base politics, pitting the vested interests of transnational political elites against the interests of local men and women in living a safe, everyday life. This essay first provides a brief history of two major military bases in the provincial city of Pyeongtaek. Then it examines how the antibase movement by local residents and political activists from outside reemerged and declined in Pyeongtaek. Finally, it analyzes lessons that can be drawn from the case study of Pyeongtaek for antibase movements and a critical understanding of the global US military presence.

China will expand naval base network in Indian Ocean

2018 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Indian Ocean ◽  
The United States ◽  
Military Bases ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Us Military ◽  
Military Presence ◽  
Chinese Military ◽  
The Indian Ocean ◽  
Regional Influence ◽  
Base Network

Subject Chinese military bases in the Indian Ocean. Significance China relies on shipping through the Indian Ocean for its energy. A large and growing number of Chinese nationals live in unstable countries in the region. These concerns are driving China to expand its military presence there. A network of bases would increase Beijing's options should it ever need to protect shipping from interdiction or protect Chinese nationals caught up in a civil war. Impacts India will respond to China’s growing presence by accelerating its security partnerships and military bases in the Indian Ocean. US military dominance in the Indian Ocean is being eroded. Competition for regional influence will grow among China, India, the United States, and potentially some middle players.

Conclusion

Framed by War ◽  
2019 ◽  
pp. 205-216
Author(s):  
Susie Woo
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
South Korea ◽  
The United States ◽  
Military Bases ◽  
American Empire ◽  
South Korean ◽  
Korean Adoptees ◽  
Us Military ◽  
Social Welfare System ◽  
The Many

The conclusion centers upon the legacies of US empire. The immigration of Korean adoptees and military brides to the United States, now numbering over 250,000 combined, evinces the paths of migration stemming from the war. South Korea also bears the legacies of US intervention, with a current social welfare system that mirrors the Western practice of institutionalization, and has relied upon transnational adoptions as a solution to an array of problems from rapid industrialization to overpopulation. As well, the permanence of a US military force in South Korea and government-sanctioned prostitution near US military bases marks the indefinite place of the US military in South Korea. The chapter closes with a look at how Korean adoptees, mixed-race individuals, and Korean women are creating their own kinship structures and support systems, as well as taking the South Korean government to task for its role in producing their circumstances. The chapter ends with a call to readers to take the United States to task, as well. It urges readers to grapple with the many things left outside of constructed Cold War family frames, and to understand how care and violence became partners in American empire and dare to unravel that union.

Stories of Hegemony: The Political Stakes of the Rise and Decline of US Power

2016 ◽  
Vol 75 (4) ◽  
pp. 1031-1039
Author(s):  
Shampa Biswas
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Philippines ◽  
Military Bases ◽  
Political Independence ◽  
Military Presence ◽  
Constant State ◽  
Us Hegemony ◽  
Archival Documentation ◽  
The Many

With Asia as its backdrop, Alfred McCoy's paper gives us a story of the rise of US hegemony after World War II. Using “military bases” rather than wars as a metric of imperial power, the paper traces the geopolitics of imperial expansion (and sometimes retraction) through a close and rich study of the many contestations around US military presence in the Philippines—contestations that occurred in both the United States and the Philippines. In doing so, one of the paper's most profound insights, made with considerable archival documentation, is that colonization and decolonization do not follow a linear trajectory and that its politics, rather than a simple imposition from the colonizer onto the colonized, are instead quite messy, complicated, and perhaps mostly importantly, in a constant state of negotiation. Thus, for instance, the paper shows us that political independence is not a clear rupture from colonization to decolonization, that arguments for the continuation or discontinuation of imperial relations post-independence are complex on both sides of the imperial divide and shift in different directions over time, and that who appears as a “threat” or an “enemy” that mobilizes a national community and nationalist resistance is also complex and inconstant. In other words, McCoy provides us with a historically detailed story of the rise of US hegemony in the latter half of the twentieth century through an account of the complex expansion of the US presence in Asia.

scholarly journals The Eagle's Nest in the Horn of Africa: US Military Strategic Deployment in Djibouti

2016 ◽  
Vol 51 (1) ◽  
pp. 111-124 ◽  
Author(s):  
Degang Sun ◽  
Yahia H. Zoubir
Keyword(s):  
The United States ◽  
Military Bases ◽  
Horn Of Africa ◽  
Us Military ◽  
Sao Tome And Principe ◽  
Military Presence ◽  
Japanese Military ◽  
The Us ◽  
The Government ◽  
Host Nation

Djibouti is the only country in the world in which US, French, German, Italian, Spanish, and Japanese military forces are stationed simultaneously; China will soon have a presence there as well. The US military deployment in Djibouti has shifted from a soft military presence to an arrangement of significant strategic import, and from a small outpost to a large garrison in the past two decades. The internal dynamics of the US deployment are geopolitical, as the US presence facilitates the carrying out of its strategies regarding antiterrorism, anti-proliferation, the protection of energy investments, and anti-piracy. The external dynamics of the US deployment are geo-economic: the government of Djibouti, as the host nation, reaps economic windfalls from the US presence in this strategically located country. Given that the United States has failed since 2008 to persuade any country on the continent to host AFRICOM, the base in Djibouti is likely to remain the only one in East Africa. Djibouti may be part of a pattern whereby some small African nations, such as São Tomé and Príncipe, collect revenue through the provision of military bases to big powers.

South Korea’s ties with key countries will worsen

2020 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
South Korea ◽  
North Korea ◽  
The United States ◽  
Xi Jinping ◽  
Content Type ◽  
South Korean ◽  
Us Military ◽  
Military Presence ◽  
The Us

Subject South Korea's international relationships. Significance South Korea’s government is celebrating the success of its response to COVID-19, but the country’s four key foreign relationships all face difficulties -- those with the United States, China, Japan and North Korea. No other countries or regions are vital to Seoul, despite vaunted ‘Southern’ and ‘Northern’ initiatives. Impacts A prolonged deadlock on funding the US military presence in South Korea could push Seoul closer to Beijing. If President Xi Jinping visits South Korea later this year, Washington could easily misread this. Substantial fence-mending with Japan may have to await new leaderships in both countries. South Korean President Moon Jae-in may have tacitly given up on North Korea, which has visibly given up on him.

scholarly journals The US military presence in the Canadian North in the 1940s – 1950s: from an "occupation army" to a unified air defense system

2021 ◽  
pp. 0
Author(s):  
Dmitry Volodin
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
World War Ii ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Arctic ◽  
Canadian Government ◽  
Air Defense ◽  
Us Military ◽  
Military Presence ◽  
Refusal To Participate ◽  
The Cold War

During World War II and at the beginning of the Cold War the United States carried out a number of major military projects in the Canadian Arctic. The Canadian government faced a difficult choice. These projects could seriously weaken the country's sovereignty in the High North. On the other hand, Canada’s refusal to participate in their implementation threatened that the United States would implement these projects alone. As a result the Canadian government approved all these projects, believing that it is really possible to defend Canada's sovereignty in the Arctic only through cooperation with the United States in the defense of the continent.

Treaty or Travesty?: Legal Issues Surrounding the U.S.- Philippines Military Base Agreement of 1947–1992

2001 ◽  
Vol 10 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 93-121
Author(s):  
L. Eve Armentrout Ma
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
World War Ii ◽  
The United States ◽  
Legal Issues ◽  
Military Bases ◽  
Common Elements ◽  
World War ◽  
Long Period ◽  
Host Nation ◽  
Do So

AbstractSince the end of World War II, the United States has been foremost in negotiating military bases on foreign soil, and it can be anticipated that it will do so again in the future. In general, these base agreements have had many common elements. Most have allowed the stationing of American troops on foreign soil for a very long period of time, and have involved a certain measure of extraterritoriality. Most have been concluded under conditions of stress for the host country. Often, for example, the host nation has been one that was devastated by war, and was either the recently defeated enemy or the near-prostrate victor. In many cases the host nation was relatively small, economically shaky, and newly independent, fearful of its chances of survival in an unpredictable and often hostile world; and more often than not, the former ruler or territorial administrator was the United States.

US Military Spending: A Perspective on the Restructuring Dynamics of the Defense Sector

2019 ◽  
Vol 51 (4) ◽  
pp. 606-628
Author(s):  
Eleonora Gentilucci
Keyword(s):  
Military Spending ◽  
The United States ◽  
Jel Classification ◽  
Defense Spending ◽  
Social Spending ◽  
Us Military ◽  
Vested Interests ◽  
Military Security ◽  
Military Expenditures ◽  
The Military

The political economy of defense spending is enormously important given its magnitude and its global implication. Since the late 1990s, world and US military spending has being rising. This trend appears to be in sharp contrast to the long-term forecast about the so-called “peace dividend” formulated after the fall of the Berlin Wall. In order to explain this trend of military expenditures in the United States, the restructuring of the defense sector (in terms of concentration and financialization), the shift from a focus on “defense” to “security,” and the role and influence of “vested interests” in this process leading to the creation of the military-security system, are taken into consideration. The relation between social spending and military expenditures is also discussed.JEL Classification: H56, H5, B5, F52, L16

The Decline of US Military Influence in Latin America

1993 ◽  
Vol 35 (2) ◽  
pp. 1-50 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. Samuel Fitch
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Latin America ◽  
Latin American ◽  
Reagan Administration ◽  
Dominant Role ◽  
The United States ◽  
Military Aid ◽  
Us Military ◽  
Military Presence ◽  
Military Relations

The US military presence in Latin America has declined significantly over the last two decades, particularly in the major countries of the region. Despite the determined efforts of the Reagan administration to reverse that trend, with few exceptions the present ability of the United States to influence the Latin American militaries is far removed from the dominant role it played in the 1950s and 1960s. Given the pressures in Washington for further cuts in military aid programs, the trend toward declining US influence and increasingly divergent US-Latin American military interests is likely to continue in the 1990s. Although the United States will continue to be a major force in the region, the primary instruments of US influence are likely to be economic, rather than military-to-military relations.

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