#NoWar2024 Conference: Resisting the USA’s Military Empire

The 3-day #NoWar2024 Conference was an opportunity to learn about the impact of the USA’s military base empire and how to resist it. The conference travelled virtually across the globe, visiting sites near U.S. military bases, from Australia, to Germany, to Colombia, with the concluding event in Washington, DC, the heart of the U.S. military base empire.

You can view all of the sessions from #NoWar2024 at World Beyond War’s website (https://worldbeyondwar.org/nowar2024/) or via a Youtube playlist.

Ending all wars means closing all military bases. The United States of America, unlike any other nation, maintains a massive network of foreign military bases around the world, over 800 bases in 80 countries. These bases are costly in a number of ways: financially, politically, socially, and environmentally. U.S. bases in foreign lands often raise geopolitical tensions, support undemocratic regimes, and serve as a recruiting tool for militant groups opposed to the U.S. presence and the governments its presence bolsters. In other cases, foreign bases are being used and have made it easier for the United States to launch and execute disastrous wars, including those in Afghanistan, Iraq, Yemen, Somalia, and Libya. Across the political spectrum and even within the U.S. military there is growing recognition that many overseas bases should have been closed decades ago, but bureaucratic inertia and misguided political interests have kept them open.

Australia has a long history of welcoming US bases and service personnel. Dozens of locations around the country are wholly or partly controlled by the USA or are accessed by the American military. Joint military exercises take place on Australian land and sea. But these are only symptoms of a deeper problem for Australia.

Modern Australia was formed through colonialism. It has a long history of militarism and strategic subservience, first to the United Kingdom and now to the United States. There has always been bipartisan support for this, best demonstrated today in the AUKUS agreement. A militaristic mindset is deeply embedded in Australia’s history, politics and culture.

Addressing the problem of US bases in Australia requires deep systemic changes. These include reckoning with our own history, recalibrating our understanding of our place in the world and stopping the spread of militarisation in Australian society. It intersects with the fight against climate change. Meanwhile, RP believes that the quiet majority of Australians want to live in peace.

The Australian leg of the #NoWar2024 Conference explored these issues, bringing together eminent strategic thinkers, First Nations campaigners against nuclear weapons, civil society leaders and, critically, younger Australians. It is their future that is at risk.