Military Base Closures: Time for Another Round?


 

Publication Date: July 1998

Publisher: Library of Congress. Congressional Research Service

Author(s):

Research Area: Military and defense

Type:

Abstract:

On May 19, 1997, Secretary of Defense William Cohen released a long awaited report, the Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR). In the report, a major review of military strategy and capabilities, he called for two additional rounds of military base closures, one in 1999 and the second in 2001. He explained that, in spite of four previous rounds of closing bases (1988, 1991, 1993, and 1995), the downsizing of DOD’s infrastructure had fallen behind the downsizing of its force structure [units and personnel].