Thread by @GuyEmersonMount

Japan has just spend $146 million dollars to expand America's empire in the Pacific. A quick thread on this truly bizarre @CNN article that rationalizes and normalizes the American military logic driving this imperial project. cnn.com/2019/12/06/asi…

In faithfully recounting the military's circular rationale the article reasons that the U.S. military must expand its empire because it does not have ENOUGH military bases: "The majority of US combat air forces in Japan are concentrated in JUST six bases." [emphasis added]

The problem with this "concentration" of firepower (or so the logic goes) is that this gives someone upset about the growth of American empire ONLY six targets (IN JAPAN) to fire on... but..."the more bases you have, the more missiles an adversary would need to fire."

Therefore: "[o]ne way to mitigate that is to spread US troops and assets out among more bases." You know, just keep expanding endlessly until you have more bases than the enemy has missiles, right? That'll work. #AmIDoingThisRight

Rather than realizing that the EXISTENCE of military bases is what makes those bases a target, the logic here is that the way to protect American empire is to build more empire. It must expand because it's too concentrated. It's too concentrated because it hasn't expanded enough.

Here's an alternate idea (that is, of course, never explored in the piece): the LESS bases you have the less targets an adversary would have to fire on. The LESS bases you have the less likely someone will WANT to fire upon you.

This is a strategy that residents in Guam, Hawai'i, Okinawa, etc. have been advancing for years as part of the de-occupation and demilitarization of the islands (that have become a target). Did CNN ask them? Of course not. @kroberiano @AkiemiG @Noeolali

Outside of the military, is there any legitimate scholar you know #AcademicTwitter / #Twitterstorians, who thinks that expanding America empire and its military bases around the world is a formula for peace and security?

The rational that America must expand its empire because "concentrating" its forces in one place (like, I don't know, America) would give an adversary too few targets sounds like a 10-year-old playing a twisted game of "Battleship." I know, fill the board with battleships? #SMH