The Geopolitics of U.S. Overseas Troops and Withdrawal

ISBN-13: 9783030944902 / Angielski / Miękka / 2023

Jo Jakobsen

Opis

Why is it so difficult for a great power or a hegemon to retrench its overseas military power? Specifically, why are U.S. military bases and troops still largely where they were five years ago, twenty years ago, or even seventy years ago? Through developing a theory of great-power persistence, this book offers an explanation. Closely aligned with neoclassical realism, the theory argues that the murkiness of the anarchic international system combines with specific psychological inclinations of individuals to produce “better-safe-than-sorry” policies. In the United States, decisions on troop deployments are powerfully influenced by the broader foreign-policy community. Its members tend to be risk-averse and highly sensitive to the possibility that even minor troop withdrawals might set off harmful geopolitical chain reactions. Preferring the status quo over any uncertain alternative, they want their country to continue to maximize its influence and project its military power abroad in order to steady wobbling geopolitical “dominoes.” The theory is put to the empirical test through a systematic analysis of U.S. overseas troop deployments, withdrawal attempts, and retrenchment resistance during the presidency of Donald Trump, which represents an ideal test case for these mechanisms. Even if U.S. voters elected a retrenchment advocate as president, and despite that the United States is a gradually declining power, the period saw very little change in U.S. overseas troop deployments. The book concludes that, barring any dramatic, unforeseeable international event, the vast network of overseas U.S. military bases and troops is likely to persist for a long time to come.

Spis treści

Chapter 1. Introduction. - Chapter 2. Stayers, Leavers, and U.S. Overseas Troops. - Chapter 3. Political Realism and Structural Constraints on Retrenchment. - Chapter 4. The System, the Psyche, and the Stayers. - Chapter 5. The Geopolitical Logic of U.S. Overseas Troops. - Chapter 6. U.S. Overseas Troops: Empirical Patterns, 2017-2021. - Chapter 7. Regional Domino Narratives and the Geopolitics of Withdrawal. - Chapter 8. Conclusion: Whither U.S. Overseas Troops?

O autorze

Jo Jakobsen is Professor at the Department of Sociology and Political Science, Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), Trondheim, Norway. His doctoral dissertation earned him the 2008 Prize for Young Excellent Researchers in the Humanities and Social Sciences from the Royal Norwegian Society of Sciences and Letters. He has since published widely in the fields of international security, geopolitical risk, and international political economy. He received the Bernard Brodie Prize for the best article published in Contemporary Security Policy in 2019.

Blurb

“A theoretically rich and empirically detailed account of the persistence of the overseas U.S. military presence, The Geopolitics of U.S. Troops and Withdrawal is an extremely important and timely work.”

– Sebastian Schmidt, Johns Hopkins University, USA

“Jakobsen has created an essential reading for anyone seeking to understand the enduring nature of US overseas deployments.”

– Michael A. Allen, Boise State University, USA

“The Geopolitics of US Overseas Troops and Withdrawal is a timely and important book.”

– Jeffrey W. Taliaferro, Tufts University

“Jo Jakobsen provides a powerful argument for why US leaders find it difficult to undertake meaningful retrenchment.”

– Peter Harris, Colorado State University, USA

“This fresh perspective on American foreign policy is as timely as it is poignant. Jakobsen’s thoughtful theoretical treatment and careful empirical analysis offer a compelling explanation for why US foreign policy seems to remain the same, despite the changes in leaders and their goals.”

– Mark David Nieman, University of Toronto, Canada

Why is it so difficult for a great power or a hegemon to retrench? More specifically, why are U.S. military bases and troops still largely where they have been for generations? This book offers an explanation. It argues that the murkiness of the anarchic international system combines with specific psychological inclinations of individuals to produce “better-safe-than-sorry” policies. Members of the U.S. foreign-policy community overwhelmingly prefer the status quo over any uncertain alternative, and they want their country to continue to maximize its influence and project its military force abroad in order to steady wobbling, though inherently hypothetical, geopolitical “dominoes.” The theory is put to the empirical test through an elaborate analysis of U.S. overseas troop deployments, withdrawal attempts, and retrenchment resistance from 2017 through 2021. Even if U.S. voters elected a retrenchment advocate – Donald Trump – as president, and despite that the United States is a gradually declining power, the period saw very little change in U.S. overseas troop deployment.

Jo Jakobsen is professor at the Department of Sociology and Political Science, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Trondheim.