A base refers to a physical geographic location owned by, leased or to otherwise possessed by an armed service or another component of the US Department of Defense. A base, moreover, means any place, facility, or installation used regularly for military purposes of any kind.
Military bases can be ports, airfields, training zones, nuclear weapons storages, weapon testing facilities, warehouses, military schools, drone centers and communication posts. In addition there are living accommodations, shops, restaurants, and recreational sites.
US bases are part of a networked unified command center. Different regions in the world fall under different Unified command Centers. Iraq is not only occupied by the 6 US bases present in Iraq it is also occupied the Unified Command Center of the middle east namely CENTCOM.
CENTCOM monitors and pursues American interests in the following countries Bahrain, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kuwait, Kyrgyzstan, Lebanon, Oman, Pakistan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, United Arab Emirates, Uzbekistan, and Yemen.
Not all these countries have US bases on them but those that do not have them are considered to be within the reach of US intervention in any form or sort when needed even if this intervention has to be launched from a base of a neighboring country.
Often US bases are on borders so that they have reach within the host country and a possible non-occupied neighboring country. Kuwait for example has 13.000 American troops which gives the United States total access to the south of Iraq. Jordan has 3.000, Syria 800 and Saudi Arabia 3000. Turkey has an additional 2500.
All these military bases are equipped with the most advanced military weapons making them capable to threaten countries that are over the border. In addition, the US stores approximately 50 nuclear weapons in Turkey in case of a serious threat to US interests in the ME
An useful source for this thread was David Vine's book.
Some additional point. Violence is also latent, its the potential of violence and the imagination of violence wherein these bases exert their coercive power on this region as well. The act of US military violence itself is a symptom of the structural presence of military bases.
Therefore, it is not enough to merely count ''instances' where the US applied violence and then make some sort of cost-balance equation of the impact of a military base. This is a sleight of hand trick often employed to downplay the role of bases.
And this is just one aspect. Military bases also have economic, cultural and PR functions. You'd be surprised how often CENTCOM representatives are interviewed for articles or news on recent developments in Iraq.
These military bases therefore function as a physical and psychological barrier to the limits of political experimentation and processes, countries in the Middle East are allowed to engage in.
When an US Government representative states something about Iraq, it is stated it fully knowing that there is a military capacity to enforce, nudge and push for a cooperative response from Iraqi elite, people and other relevant actors. No other country in the world has and had this capability.
