To manage the spending of the U.S. defense budget more efficiently, the Base Realignment and Closure Commission was established to evaluate the need for large numbers of military facilities and to make recommendations concerning which bases should be closed and which should have their missions altered so that they would remain relevant.
Military bases in the United States represent more than the role they play in the defense of the country. To the cities and states that host military bases, the facilities mean civilian employment, customers for local business, and general economic health. Because the loss of a military base can spell economic disaster for a state or region, members of the U.S. Congress generally oppose the closing of military bases in their home districts or states. As a result, base closings become more about political battles than about military necessity.
Before 1977, the U.S. secretary of defense retained the right to decide the future of military bases, and in the 1960’s more than sixty bases closed without the input of Congress. That changed in 1977, when President Jimmy Carter signed Public Law 95-82, requiring the Department of Defense to give Congress sixty days’ notice of its intent to close a military base and to abide by any congressional action taken to keep the base in operation. Base closures ceased for the next ten years, as members of Congress blocked attempts to close bases to preserve jobs and economic opportunities in their home states.
President Ronald Reagan, however, changed Carter’s policy. Eager to cut government spending without curtailing U.S. military power, Reagan recognized the need to spend the nation’s defense budget more efficiently. Reagan appointed J. Peter Grace to serve as chairman of the President’s Private Sector Survey on Cost Control, better known as the Grace Commission,
To each list of BRAC recommendations from the commission, the secretary of defense added his own recommendations, and the final list went to Congress for approval. To avoid partisan protection of individual bases, the law required Congress to approve or reject each recommendation list in its entirety. On January 5, 1989, Secretary of Defense Frank C. Carlucci submitted to Congress the first BRAC list, which was approved. This initial list closed eighty-six military facilities, partially closed five, and realigned fifty-four others. Most of the base closures involved facilities that were surrounded by urban areas and were thus limited in how much they could grow or in the types of training that could take place there.
The end of the Cold War accelerated the importance of the BRAC process. The declining U.S. military budget, along with a diminished threat from the Soviet Union, forced the Defense Department to curtail its facilities. President George H. W. Bush
The types of bases that the commission opted to close reflected the new military reality in the post-Cold War world. Many of the U.S. Air Force bases that were closed, including Loring Air Force Base in Maine and Wurtsmith Air Force Base in Michigan, had hosted squadrons of strategic bombers such as the B-52 Stratofortress, aircraft that were being retired because their mission had disappeared. Because the U.S. Navy now contracted for warships from private shipyards, most of the Navy’s own shipyards were closed, such as those in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and Charleston, South Carolina. Many of the U.S. Army bases that were closed were simply too small or too close to urban populations to have practical military value and had been used mostly as administrative centers. The best example was Fort Douglas, Utah, which was surrounded by the University of Utah.
Other closures resulted from the consolidation of the tasks of two facilities into one. Such consolidation allowed the BRAC Commission to close or realign many naval air stations, Army depots, and training facilities. Other bases avoided closure when they were realigned into “joint” bases that conducted multiple tasks out of single facilities, often hosting units from various military services.
The end of the Cold War also affected American military bases on foreign soil, as the BRAC process reduced the military presence of the United States around the world by closing bases. By 1997, the four BRAC Commissions had closed 21 percent of the military bases in the continental United States and 58 percent of overseas bases.
The biggest opponents of the BRAC process were always the civilians who lived near the bases slated for closure. The threat of losing civilians jobs and the money pumped into local economies by large numbers of military personnel frightened many communities as they focused on the possibility of a bleak economic outcome. The actual economic impacts of base closures on local communities were mixed, however. The closure or realignment of many small and remote bases had no significant impacts, because the bases were not important elements in their local economies. The closure of other bases actually boosted the local economies; for instance, several naval shipyards passed into the hands of private enterprise, which expanded their operations and added to local revenues. Many cities welcomed the closure of bases, especially those associated with aircraft, which generated noise and congested air lanes around local airports.
Some communities acquired closed bases and converted the land into industrial parks or sold it to developers, so that they suffered little or no negative economic impact. Although some communities were negatively affected by the closure of bases, others benefited when the military units from the closed bases relocated to nearby bases and boosted their local economies. In communities that relied on military bases as the primary source of employment, however, base closures caused real economic hardship at the local and regional levels.
In 2005, President George W. Bush announced another round of base closings, the first in ten years. The plan called for the closing of thirty-three major bases and significant reductions in facilities allocated to the National Guard. The latter caused some concern in Congress, and the legislators threatened to vote down the secretary of defense’s recommendations. Despite this opposition, Congress approved the 2005 BRAC list, paving the way for future potential BRAC recommendations.
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Marshall, Michael L. Defense Laboratories and Military Capability: Are We Heading for a BRACdown? Washington, D.C.: National Defense University, 2004. Represents the backlash to the BRAC process, charging that it has cut too much and the wrong things. Argues that the closure of military research facilities places the military at the mercy of civilian defense research, which might harm U.S. military operations in the future. -
Sorenson, David S. Shutting Down the Cold War: The Politics of Military Base Closure. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1998. Written by a faculty member at the Air War College at Maxwell Air Force Base, Alabama, who had an insider’s look at the BRAC process when Maxwell Air Force Base came up for possible closure. The base did not close, but the experience prompted Sorenson to examine the political process and economic ramifications of BRAC. -
Wilson, Charles L., and James L. Weingartner. Blame-Proof Policymaking: Congress and Base Closures. Monterey, Calif.: Naval Postgraduate School, 1993. Charges that the BRAC process has been highly politicized despite the commission’s nonpartisan organization. Asserts that Congress has had the capability to exert influence on which bases are selected for closure and which are not, along with the ability to blame the BRAC Commission for Congress members’ failures to protect bases in their home states.
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