Can America Afford Its Overseas Military Bases?

U.S. soldiers arrive at Czech Army barracks in Prague, Czech Republic.
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Can America Afford Its Overseas Military Bases?

Foreign military facilities may become unaffordable as the U.S. redirects dwindling financial resources to defend its own borders.

United States President Donald Trump recently announced plans to deploy troops to the U.S. border with Mexico. “Until we can have a wall and proper security, we’re going to be guarding our border with the military,” he said during a press conference on April 3. “That’s a big step. We really haven’t done that before, or certainly not very much before.”

The president reiterated his goal to pull U.S. troops out of Syria. “I want to get out,” he said. “I want to bring our troops back home. I want to start rebuilding our nation.”

In the weeks since President Trump made these announcements, he has hit some major roadblocks. The governor of California has refused to deploy National Guard troops to the Mexican border, and Syrian dictator Bashar Assad has attacked his people with chlorine gas. So only 900 National Guard troops were sent to the Mexican border. Meanwhile, the U.S. military fired cruise missiles at Syrian chemical weapons facilities.

The fact that the U.S. government is spending more on wars in the Middle East than it is on security at the Mexican border has some Trump supporters concerned.

“Even as it tells the American taxpayer that his own security is too costly, the political class dips into his pocket to pay for border guards abroad,” wrote George Neumayr, a contributing editor to the American Spectator. “It yawns at proximate threats to American national security, while rushing to stave off the most distant ones. According to the Department of Defense, the American military has roughly 28,000 troops in South Korea and almost 50,000 in Japan. The U.S. military has bases all over the place, from one end of the Earth to the other. And that’s regarded in Washington as unremarkable. But the moment Trump proposed the wall, Washington suddenly turned stingy.”

Many disagree with Neumayr’s assertion that a wall on the Mexican border is more important to national security than stabilizing Syria. But it is undeniable that the U.S. is struggling to pay for its foreign military bases.

The U.S. maintains 800 foreign military bases spread across 80 countries, according to David Vine, an associate professor of Anthropology from American University. These bases cost U.S. taxpayers over $156 billion per year—almost one fifth of all U.S. military spending.

With the federal budget deficit projected to soar to $1 trillion by 2020, interest payments are consuming an increasing share of U.S. tax revenues. Within the next few years, the federal government is projected to spend more on interest than on defense. This means that America will be forced into making budget cuts or printing massive amounts of money. Since 62 percent of the $4.407 trillion slated to be spent in fiscal year 2019 is earmarked for mandatory spending programs like Medicare and Social Security, all budget cuts must come from the discretionary budget (unless Congress reforms mandatory spending). This likely means defense budget cuts in the near future.

Congress acknowledges this reality and projects that defense spending will fall from 4.7 percent to 2.7 percent of the nation’s gross domestic product within a decade. If the nation is forced to cut defense spending, its overseas military bases will likely be one of the first expenses to go. The loss of these bases would transform America from a global hegemon projecting power around the world into a normal nation just defending its borders. Many people on both sides of the political spectrum would love to see this happen. Many on the left view America’s overseas military bases as oppressive colonial outposts, while many on the right view them as a needless burden on taxpayers.

Mexican drug cartels grow stronger as America’s financial state grows weaker. Whether or not politicians want to keep America’s foreign bases, they may soon become unaffordable as the nation redirects its dwindling financial resources to defending its own borders. America is in no financial shape to be the world’s policeman. This is bad news for global stability.

The world’s most important trade routes pass through the Strait of Malacca, the Strait of Hormuz, the Bab el-Mandeb, the Turkish Straits, the Suez Canal and the Panama Canal. Without its foreign military bases, America loses the ability to protect and control these strategic maritime choke points. If America cannot defend the world’s most important trade routes, the U.S. homeland becomes vulnerable to economic seige by hostile powers.

In his book The United States and Britain in Prophecy, Herbert W. Armstrong explained that the English-speaking peoples once controlled virtually every maritime choke point and sea gate on the planet. How did these nations grow to dominate global trade to such an extent? It all began with a promise made to the patriarch Abraham. God promised to give Abraham’s descendants control over the “gates” of their enemies (Genesis 22:17). A gate is a narrow passage of entrance or exit. When speaking nationally, a “sea gate” is a narrow choke point like the Panama Canal. God gave Britain and America those commercial gates, ensuring that they would become economic and military superpowers. He did this because they are the literal descendants of Abraham’s grandson Israel.

But God also warned that if America and Britain did not obey Him, then not only would those sea gates be taken away, but they would be used against them (Deuteronomy 28:52). The fact that U.S. financial problems are forcing policymakers to consider closing the military bases that protect these sea gates is a telling indicator of where America is headed.

The greatest prophet of all time, Jesus Christ, told His disciples about the time when the world would be dominated by non-Israelite nations (Luke 21:24). He also foretold that these non-Israelite nations would wreak unimaginable havoc on Earth, to the point where they would destroy all life on Earth if He did not return to stop them. That is why the seismic shift away from America and toward nations like China, Iran, Germany and Russia is actually good news. It is actually the first step heralding the beginning of the end of mankind’s experiment in self-government, and the return of Jesus Christ to this Earth.

For a detailed description of the biblical passages describing the end of Western dominance, read our article “Why the Trumpet Watches America’s Retreat From Global Leadership.”