Pragmatism

Explaining changes in practices of sovereignty and the origins of new practices depends on a foregrounding of processes and relations in understanding the social world. This chapter develops a processual-relational approach to social analysis and contrasts it to the substantialism that dominates much international relations theory and that inherently limits analyses of novelty and change. The aim is to replace the conceptualization of actors, norms, and institutions as substantive things with an understanding of these entities as emerging through ongoing transactions and relations—an approach that also emphasizes the unavoidable intersubjectivity, and therefore normativity, of all action. This provides a foundation for the subsequent development of the key pragmatist concepts of habit, disruption, and deliberative innovation. Together, these concepts provide a general account of change in normative orientations and the emergence of novelty and help explain the historic change in the practices of sovereignty. I accompany this theoretical framework with a brief overview of the empirics.

Searching for Security, 1942–1947

In the uncertain security climate after the conclusion of the Second World War but before the intensification of the Cold War, the major factor that shaped US strategic planning was the impact of novel destructive technologies that radically increased the speed and scale of warfare. American planners responded by seeking to enlarge the defensive perimeter of the United States beyond its territory. How to realize this and what it meant in concrete terms, however, was an open question. Over time, the wartime allies worked out a variety of arrangements premised on different rationales in light of the political difficulties associated with a foreign peacetime military presence. Where US military presences were maintained, they were predicated on temporary conditions, and none were fated to become the kind of arrangements we are familiar with today. The discussion develops case studies of American interactions with Canada, Portugal, Britain, France, Iceland, and Saudi Arabia.

Settling in, 1948–1951

The deterioration of relations between the West and the Soviet Union highlighted the salience of a perceived transnational communist threat to the security of Western Europe. Together with the emergence of novel destructive technologies, this development constituted a major change in the security environment that policymakers grappled with in the wake of the war. It helped catalyze the transformation of foreign US military presences tied to temporary conditions into longer-term arrangements. This development played out across a number of host countries in largely simultaneous and interlinked processes. Central to the emergence of what became recognized as a distinct practice of foreign military basing was a change in the understanding of sovereignty in terms of the nature of territoriality. Recalling the theoretical emphasis on process, the states that emerged from these developments were significantly changed, with different capabilities and the ability to take advantage of new strategies.

Colonial Collisions, 1938–1941

This chapter begins the exploration of the origins of contemporary basing practices with a close look at the 1941 Leased Bases Agreement between the United States and Britain and the developments from which it emerged. Concerned only with colonial territory, the agreement can now be seen, in hindsight, as a stepping stone to contemporary practices. The focus is on how policymakers wrestled with the issue of territorial sovereignty in the context of a rapidly evolving and deteriorating security situation immediately prior to the outbreak of the Second World War. Negotiators on both sides worked within the traditional understandings of the relationship between military presence and territorial authority, which made it extremely difficult to come to terms with a foreign military presence. American policymakers expected to retain broad authority in the territories hosting US bases—authority that had significant continuities with colonial governance—while British policymakers feared the loss of British sovereignty.

Sovereignty

This chapter delves into the historical record to illustrate the stark change in practices of sovereignty following the Second World War. Prior to the war, the practice of sovereignty was, in part, constituted by a naturalized association between the presence of a state’s military in a given territory and the state’s authority over that territory. To host a foreign military was understood to entail subjugation. This was a robust and unquestioned aspect of sovereignty, which I illustrate through a discussion of the practices of naval power projection and the predicament of weak states in the crises prior to the outbreak of the Second World War. I contrast this with the situation today, in which the linkage between military presence and territorial authority is contingent. Basing agreements are concluded for a variety of reasons, some quite trivial. Moreover, the practice is durable, having outlived the conditions under which it first developed.

Here to Stay?

After briefly recapping how a pragmatist perspective informs our understanding of normative orientations by embedding them in practice and process, the concluding chapter discusses how this approach helps to make sense of the future of sovereign basing. While emerging out of a specific historical configuration of factors, sovereign basing as a strategy has persisted and will likely endure for the foreseeable future because strategies are not mere tools with which actors have an instrumental relationship. Rather, as a habit that informs how power is exercised and interests are conceived, policymakers cannot easily discard sovereign basing, and we will likely see continued and perhaps even increasing recourse to it not only by the United States but other states as well, particularly China. Barring developments that stimulate broad reflection and an intersubjective re-articulation of practices of sovereignty that excludes sovereign basing, recurring controversy over specific basing arrangements is unlikely to have a significant effect.

From Guantánamo to K2

This chapter lays out the empirical puzzle and theoretical explanation with which the book is concerned. Prior to the Second World War, foreign military presences could be understood only in terms of the subjugation of the host state. However, in contemporary security politics, states may enter contractual arrangements governing such presences and end them as desired. This development is rooted in a change in relations between military presence and territorial authority occasioned by the exigencies of the war and the early Cold War. Mainstream theories of international relations cannot adequately account for this development. Turning to practices and a pragmatist understanding of action helps explain the origins of what I call “sovereign basing,” as well as its persistence through recent changes in international politics. The chapter lays the foundation for the study by carefully defining the practice of sovereign basing and setting the bounds of the investigation.