New and Old Empires
Even if the Pentagon budget were to begin to shrink, expansion of America's empire of drone bases is a sure thing in the years to come. Drones are now the bedrock of Washington's future military planning and -- with counterinsurgency out of favor -- the preferred way of carrying out wars abroad.
During the eight years of George W. Bush's presidency, as the U.S. was building up its drone fleets, the country launched wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and carried out limited strikes in Yemen, Pakistan, and Somalia, using drones in at least four of those countries. In less than three years under President Obama, the U.S. has launched drone strikes in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Pakistan, Somalia, and Yemen. It maintains that it has carte blanche to kill suspected enemies in any nation (or at least any nation in the global south).
According to a report by the Congressional Budget Office published earlier this year, "the Department of Defense plans to purchase about 730 new medium-sized and large unmanned aircraft systems" over the next decade. In practical terms, this means more drones like the Reaper.
Military officials told the Wall Street Journal that the Reaper "can fly 1,150 miles from base, conduct missions, and return home" [T]he time a drone can stay aloft depends on how heavily armed it is." According to a drone operator training document obtained by TomDispatch, at maximum payload, meaning with 3,750 pounds worth of Hellfire missiles and GBU-12 or GBU-30 bombs on board, the Reaper can remain aloft for 16 to 20 hours.
Even a glance at a world map tells you that, if the U.S. is to carry out ever more drone strikes across the developing world, it will need more bases for its future UAVs. As an unnamed senior military official pointed out to a Washington Post reporter, speaking of all those new drone bases clustered around the Somali and Yemeni war zones, "If you look at it geographically, it makes sense -- you get out a ruler and draw the distances [drones] can fly and where they take off from."
Earlier this year, an analysis by TomDispatch determined that there are more than 1,000 U.S. military bases scattered across the globe -- a shadowy base-world providing plenty of existing sites that can, and no doubt will, host drones. But facilities selected for a pre-drone world may not always prove optimal locations for America's current and future undeclared wars and assassination campaigns. So further expansion in Africa, the Middle East, and Asia is a likelihood.
What are the Air Force's plans in this regard? Lieutenant Colonel John Haynes was typically circumspect, saying, "We are constantly evaluating potential operating locations based on evolving mission needs." If the last decade is any indication, those "needs" will only continue to grow.
Nick Turse is a historian, essayist, and investigative journalist. The associate editor of TomDispatch.com and a senior editor at Alternet.org, his latest book is The Case for Withdrawal from Afghanistan (Verso Books). This article marks another of Turse's joint Alternet/TomDispatch investigative reports on U.S. national security policy and the American empire.
Copyright 2011 Nick Turse
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