The design and UX isn't done, Rob and Abbie, okkurrrr! 😌
joseph64daniels's review
4.0
Americans, generally believe that having a large number of United State military bases established throughout the world not only stabilizes security in foreign countries, but that it also serves as a deterrent for those who wants to wage war against the U.S. However, David Vine in his book, Base Nation:How U.S. Military Bases Abroad Harm America and the World, provides a strong argument that not only does the outposts do a poor job at any of these functions, but that it perpetrates a climate that war could break out at any moment.
Originally it was deemed to be imperative for the United States to have military bases spread out the world to stop the spread of communism during the peak of the Cold War, but after the fall of the Soviet Union, the military, Vine argues, that the military is now trying to find a purpose to exist.
While the United States claims that one of its goals in its foreign policy is to export democracy to other countries, on the other hand, it has become the norm for the military to back repressive regimes.
While it may seem that having a base in South Korea would deter North Korea from invading, there is a strong likelihood that its trying to create its very own nuclear program in retaliation.
While readers may not agree with all of Vine's arguments, Base Nation is still an important book to read to understand America's foreign policy's origins, and how U.S. outposts impact have on the countries that hosts them.
Originally it was deemed to be imperative for the United States to have military bases spread out the world to stop the spread of communism during the peak of the Cold War, but after the fall of the Soviet Union, the military, Vine argues, that the military is now trying to find a purpose to exist.
While the United States claims that one of its goals in its foreign policy is to export democracy to other countries, on the other hand, it has become the norm for the military to back repressive regimes.
While it may seem that having a base in South Korea would deter North Korea from invading, there is a strong likelihood that its trying to create its very own nuclear program in retaliation.
While readers may not agree with all of Vine's arguments, Base Nation is still an important book to read to understand America's foreign policy's origins, and how U.S. outposts impact have on the countries that hosts them.
freckled_frog_boi's review
medium-paced
5.0
With the timing of the news release about the sexual assault and kidnapping of a civilian minor by a marine in California, there was perhaps no more impactful time to be finishing this book. Truly, this book covers everything:
historical colonization and it's ties to bases, Neo-colonialization and it's ties to bases, how base architecture is built specifically to maintain nationalism, how living on base is living in a 'total institution' where you are watched 24/7 and have to continue routines that uphold the views of a powerful America, the culture of base-living, creation of coups in other countries just to keep bases located there, lies to maintain reasons to stay abroad, lies that allow the military to build bases if only in form and not in name, the labor of women in upholding the system and being victims of the system, the military's history of sexual assault, the dark and closely knit base ties to human trafficking, racism towards those who work to maintain the base operations, racism towards the countries in which the bases are located, base protests and the violent force used to subdue them, the many environmental hazards and climate irresponsibility the military shows - ruining the health of their own soldiers as well as entire islands and their citizens, their good connections with mobs and dictators, how military base contracting works and how the military has been monopolized by a lot of large corporations, how the pentagon has underrepresented military spending by hundreds of billions of dollars, --- and much more that I'm missing at the moment.
Such an impactful book, highly recommend, but definitely check trigger warnings because it almost gets overwhelming if you are trying to read multiple chapters in a row. Everything is so horrifying.
And for any military kids out there, babe you're gonna feel really seen with this, the book got the experience of living on base down to an art. You're gonna feel like all the stories and rules you heard about growing up on base start to make a lot more sense. You might have some stuff to bring up to a therapist, if I'm being totally honest.
historical colonization and it's ties to bases, Neo-colonialization and it's ties to bases, how base architecture is built specifically to maintain nationalism, how living on base is living in a 'total institution' where you are watched 24/7 and have to continue routines that uphold the views of a powerful America, the culture of base-living, creation of coups in other countries just to keep bases located there, lies to maintain reasons to stay abroad, lies that allow the military to build bases if only in form and not in name, the labor of women in upholding the system and being victims of the system, the military's history of sexual assault, the dark and closely knit base ties to human trafficking, racism towards those who work to maintain the base operations, racism towards the countries in which the bases are located, base protests and the violent force used to subdue them, the many environmental hazards and climate irresponsibility the military shows - ruining the health of their own soldiers as well as entire islands and their citizens, their good connections with mobs and dictators, how military base contracting works and how the military has been monopolized by a lot of large corporations, how the pentagon has underrepresented military spending by hundreds of billions of dollars, --- and much more that I'm missing at the moment.
Such an impactful book, highly recommend, but definitely check trigger warnings because it almost gets overwhelming if you are trying to read multiple chapters in a row. Everything is so horrifying.
And for any military kids out there, babe you're gonna feel really seen with this, the book got the experience of living on base down to an art. You're gonna feel like all the stories and rules you heard about growing up on base start to make a lot more sense. You might have some stuff to bring up to a therapist, if I'm being totally honest.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Gun violence, Police brutality, Sexual violence, Toxic relationship, Colonisation, Death, Emotional abuse, Misogyny, Murder, Sexual assault, Adult/minor relationship, Pedophilia, Rape, Classism, Deportation, Physical abuse, Racism, Sexual harassment, Suicide, Sexism, Violence, War, and Trafficking
dominiquefragments's review
challenging
dark
informative
medium-paced
5.0
I went into this book with absolutely zero knowledge about the United States' foreign presence and came out of it with a wealth of information. This book should be required reading in schools. So much mystery and obscurity surrounds the military and where exactly all of the money it devours goes. This book shed light on horrifying and enraging issues and the bottomless money pit that is the US military. It really hit a chord when the author brought up how much different the US would look if even a fourth of the money spent went into education, healthcare, and transportation within the US.
callunavulgaris's review
challenging
informative
medium-paced
3.75
This book was excellent (as was the audiobook). I can see David Vine updating this every decade or so. My only qualm is that he didn’t address the likely conservative rebuke of moving bases to domestic locales as an infringement on “states rights.” Which is hilarious given that is what Vine addresses in this book, that bases are a colonizing agent.
stevia333k's review
5.0
if you read between the lines, then this book is extremely helpful. While this book doesn't criticize cops enough & seems to take too much of a social democrat view on explicit action items, the author also wrote this in the "author's notes" section not included in the audiobook:
"In this book, I have tried to befair and to consider as many perspectives as possible on every issue Iexamined. As my ideas and conclusions took shape, I particularly tried toconsider points of view opposite my own. ¶ I think a good measure of fairness is whether, before publication, onecan share one’s writing with interviewees with whom one might disagree.To that end, I showed drafts of sections and chapters to as many peopleinvolved in the research as possible and gave them opportunities to offerfeedback, suggestions, and corrections. I am thankful for the opennesswith which so many people read my writing, especially when theydissented from my perspectives, and the helpful corrections that theyoffered"
So that while the information is factual, this book can end up favoring recuperation because the way conspiracy theories work is they'll splice 2 or more conspiracies together in order to encrypt the cause & effect. For example, the problem with 5G is that it increases surveillance capabilities of the govt & it also ruins meterology equipment back 40 years in the middle of a climate cataclysm. it has nothing to do disease. likewise diseases popping up is partly part of a design of production lines which you then get like contractors to profit off of. While this book overall doesn't talk about these partly due to this being from 2015 from the George W Bush & Obama eras, not the Trump era, still.
So basically, this book self-censored, but if you read between the lines, it's extremely informative, and paired with other texts, such as how indigenous peoples get oppressed in USA etc, so on & so forth, you'll figure out the parts that were censored. however, new information since then, such as the increased use of mercenaries instead of troops (which combines profiteering with whack-a-mole) helps show how conservatively the author estimated the excesses to be.
"In this book, I have tried to befair and to consider as many perspectives as possible on every issue Iexamined. As my ideas and conclusions took shape, I particularly tried toconsider points of view opposite my own. ¶ I think a good measure of fairness is whether, before publication, onecan share one’s writing with interviewees with whom one might disagree.To that end, I showed drafts of sections and chapters to as many peopleinvolved in the research as possible and gave them opportunities to offerfeedback, suggestions, and corrections. I am thankful for the opennesswith which so many people read my writing, especially when theydissented from my perspectives, and the helpful corrections that theyoffered"
So that while the information is factual, this book can end up favoring recuperation because the way conspiracy theories work is they'll splice 2 or more conspiracies together in order to encrypt the cause & effect. For example, the problem with 5G is that it increases surveillance capabilities of the govt & it also ruins meterology equipment back 40 years in the middle of a climate cataclysm. it has nothing to do disease. likewise diseases popping up is partly part of a design of production lines which you then get like contractors to profit off of. While this book overall doesn't talk about these partly due to this being from 2015 from the George W Bush & Obama eras, not the Trump era, still.
So basically, this book self-censored, but if you read between the lines, it's extremely informative, and paired with other texts, such as how indigenous peoples get oppressed in USA etc, so on & so forth, you'll figure out the parts that were censored. however, new information since then, such as the increased use of mercenaries instead of troops (which combines profiteering with whack-a-mole) helps show how conservatively the author estimated the excesses to be.
hbeags's review
5.0
this was a really well done look at the us imperial machine. the reoccurring looks at based in specific countries (south korea, japan, italy, honduras) in different aspects did perfect justice to horrors inflicted globally. the tie-in of personal experience also showed how meticulously researched this book was, and showed the passion of the author. the last chapter was a great ending and succinctly explained how much the united states loses in what it could give its people by pouring unnecessary funding abroad.