The Factors Effective on the Displacement of the U.S. Military Bases in Europe (from the Western Europe to the Eastern Europe)

The present research addresses the U.S. military presence in Europe and the geopolitical, geo-economical and strategic reasons for the displacement of American bases that shifted the balance from the West to the East of Europe. The origin of the U.S. military presence and the establishment of the U.S. military bases in Europe dates back to the First World War, and on a wider level, to the Second World War. The requirements of the Cold War allowed America to perpetuate its military bases in this continent aimed at, and under the pretext of, countering communism and the East Block, and preventing its influence in the countries of the West Europe. Germany, Italia, England, Spanish, Greece and Portugal are traditionally countries in which the United States has more military bases than anywhere else in Europe. Despite this, since the beginning of 21th Century, due to economic, political, security-military, strategic and geopolitical reasons, efforts have been started to shut a few of the bases down and move them to Eastern Europe and Southeast Europe. The hypothesis in this article is that the departure of the American bases to Eastern Europe can be addressed under three kinds of logic, namely economic, strategic and geopolitical. The high costs related to maintaining troops in the Western Europe, suitable spaces in the Eastern Europe for extensive military maneuvers, the strictness displayed by most environmental institutions and public opinion in the Western European countries, military presence by nascent democracies of Eastern Europe and being adjacent to operational areas in the Caucasus and Western Asia are the most important reasons of the departure of the U.S. military bases from the West to Eastern Europe.