Michael O'Hanlon
In recent weeks, President Donald Trump has introduced a new element into his longstanding dispute with many American allies over military burdensharing. Mr. Trump is right that most American allies don't do enough for their own defense; a new NATO report shows that just 7 of 29 members meet the agreed alliance standard that 2 percent of gross domestic product should be devoted to military budgets. To help redress the situation, Trump wants allies such as Korea and Japan, as well as Germany and Italy and the UK — the five countries where America stations most of its overseas forces in Northeast Asia and Europe — to fully reimburse the U.S. Treasury for all costs incurred by basing American forces in their countries. Then, for good measure, he wants to add a premium of some 50 percent, above and beyond full reimbursement, if those nations want American forces to remain. This concept has recently been used to help persuade Seoul, already a conscientious American ally that spends 2.6 percent of GDP on its armed forces, to modestly increase funds in support of the 28,000 GIs stationed in South Korea.
A U.S. military jet in Gwangju, South Korea.
This idea, even if motivated by a reasonable American frustration with inadequate allied burdensharing, is a mistake.
Symbolically, and diplomatically, Trump's idea has its problems. The threat to pull U.S. forces out of overseas bases over a financial dispute is an unworthy way to deal with treaty-bound American allies who share our values and our broad strategic goals. The implication that we will choose to base our forces where the financial payoff is greatest makes our troops seem like mercenaries. But even beyond these points, there are two strong arguments against "cost plus 50 percent" idea on its own dollars-and-cents terms. One of them is a green-eyeshades technical argument, one a broader strategic perspective. Both are important.
It's actually inexpensive to station troops
First, the technocratic argument: keeping U.S. forces abroad in places like the five countries named above is actually fairly inexpensive, and most added costs are already covered by those allies. In fact, in some cases the marginal cost of having U.S. forces abroad, rather than keeping the same units stateside, may actually be close to zero.
To understand the math, it's useful to break down the Pentagon budget into three relatively equal main chunks. One is for acquisition — research and development and testing of equipment, then procurement of that equipment. One is for U.S. military and civilian employees of the Department of Defense. The last is for operations, maintenance, contractor support, and base infrastructure.
Of these three categories of cost, only the last changes much when American forces are based abroad rather than at home. Either way, we buy them basically the same equipment. Either way, we pay them the same salaries; the only differences in compensation are relatively minor ones for travel and slight differences in housing allowances. But operating from a smaller, more cramped bases in densely populated South Korea or Japan or Germany may entail somewhat higher costs than stationing forces in Texas, for example. So can building facilities abroad to maintain equipment. So can building dedicated schools for American military children overseas.
Hosting nations cover the costs
How much do these additional expenses amount to? All told, RAND and others estimate that added annual costs of basing forces in a Northeast Asian or European allied nation total $40,000 or less per soldier, sailor, Marine, or airman/airwoman. Considering that we have some 200,000 troops stationed or deployed in these places, that makes for a grand total of perhaps $5 billion to $6 billion a year. Contributions already made by Seoul, Tokyo, Berlin, and others cover about $4 billion of that total. The remaining net added costs of $1 billion to $2 billion a year are collectively about one quarter of 1 percent of the total U.S. defense budget. Moreover, when major relocations of U.S. forces occur in these countries — as has been underway in South Korea of late, and as is planned for Okinawa, Japan — the host nations cover the lion's share of the one-time expenses.
This leads directly to the broader strategic argument. The main reason the United States has bases abroad is to deter aggressors in regions that we have decided are too important to American interests to leave unprotected. We had no overseas base network to speak of in the early 20th century. Two world wars resulted, when regional rivals dragged each other, and then us, into conflict. Mr. Trump and a few academics may doubt this logic, but the overwhelming consensus among American strategists, and the broad lessons of history, argue otherwise. Given that we have decided to maintain a global system of alliances, overseas bases become a smart way of demonstrating resolve and ensuring that America would immediately have skin in the game for any crisis or conflict involving our major allies abroad. And they are also a good bargain, compared to the available alternatives of how to bring U.S. combat power quickly into an overseas theater.
The costs of not having bases are higher
Take one slightly oversimplified example: the U.S. air and naval bases in Japan. Today, the United States bases about two wings of Air Force fighter aircraft in Japan, with a third wing flying off a U.S. aircraft carrier based near Tokyo. If Washington did not have access to these Japanese bases, yet still believed that its interests in Korea and the Western Pacific required maintaining that same level of tactical airpower constantly on station in the region, its only real choice might be to keep three aircraft carriers in western Pacific waters. Because they would be operating from faraway U.S. bases, sustaining three on station could require a dozen or more in the force structure, given the tyranny of distance and the need for rotations to avoid excessively long deployments. At present we have 11 aircraft carriers for the entire world, only four to five of which typically focus on the western Pacific. So we'd need a half dozen more (at least) in the Navy's fleet.
How much would an additional six aircraft carrier battle groups cost today's military? An aircraft carrier, plus planes and escort ships, now costs almost $30 billion to acquire. It then costs more than $2.5 billion annually to operate, according to the Congressional Budget Office. Spreading out that $30 billion acquisition over the lifetime of the equipment means that the average annual cost of an aircraft carrier battle group is $3.5 billion. Thus, the average annual cost of adding six would be more than $20 billion — just to compensate for the air and naval bases we now have in Japan.
So even if we leave aside the disruptive effects of Mr. Trump's confrontational approach with allies, the dollars and cents of his new cost plus 50 idea just don't add up. Overseas bases in active war zones in the Middle East may be expensive. But bases in established allied countries in East Asia and Europe that sustain deterrence in peacetime are a bargain by any measure.
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