Outposts of Empire

by MICHAEL T. KLARE

[from the April 25, 2005 issue]

The Defense Department has not yet selected all of the future locations for its new constellation of overseas facilities. But Pentagon officials are known to have visited a number of sites to assess their potential utility for this purpose, and both the Congressional Research Service and the Congressional Budget Office have speculated on a number of others.

Eastern Europe: According to the CBO the Pentagon is interested in the establishment of three or more forward operating locations in Eastern Europe. In Poland it is looking into the use of several facilities once occupied by Soviet forces. In Romania much attention has been paid to the air base at Mihail Kogalniceanu and the Black Sea port of Constanta. Both were used to ferry troops and equipment to Iraq, and Secretary Rumsfeld visited these facilities in October to weigh their future utilization by American forces.