This month, DoD unveils it’s first list in a decade of military bases it wants closed or downsized, this time to streamline facilities and acreage for forces in transformation. The bases are said to represent excess capacity approaching 25 percent and, while they remain open, force the services to waste billions of dollars a year on installation operations, maintenance, and personnel. But for military retirees, reservists, and their families who live near the named bases, the list represents support systems that are under attack. Some will lose access to on-base health care. Many more will lose access to free prescription drugs, discount shopping, and affordable clubs.

Policymakers have had base closings in mind while shaping various personnel initiatives. The prospect of closing more bases helped spur initiatives to strengthen TRICARE Standard, the military’s traditional fee-for-service health insurance and an alternative to TRICARE Prime, the managed care program that revolves around full use of base hospitals and clinics. This will be the fifth round of base realignment and closures (BRAC) since the Cold War ended. Rounds in 1988, 1991, 1993, and 1995 produced $29 billion in net savings through September 2003 and a stream of annual savings of $7 billion, according to the GAO.

In March 2004, President George W. Bush named the nine-member BRAC commission tasked to review and finalize the closure list. The commission will hold public hearings and review arguments for and against continuing operation of individual bases before making a final list. A vote of seven commissions can add an installation, but a simple majority of five can remove a base. When the commissioners complete their review, the president may approve the list and forward it to Congress or send it back for reconsideration. Neither Congress nor the president can make changes to the list. If the president accepts the list, Congress will have 45 days to vote it down or it becomes law.

The release of the draft list intensifies public debate and local hand wringing, but this BRAC round actually began with passage of the FY 2002 National Defense Authorization Act in fall 2001, which authorized a new BRAC round. Following that, base commanders began sending current data about their installations for analysis, and under selection criteria published in December 2003, the services ranked closure candidates based on overall military value, current and future mission capability, and operational readiness impact, including future training and mobilizations.

Each BRAC round has been controversial, sparking efforts from politicians and community leaders to save their base and protect local jobs, businesses, and property values. This round could be more divisive than usual, occuring during a global war on terrorism and with the services ordered to execute a major pullback of forces from Cold War-era bases overseas, especially in Europe. That will have communities arguing not only that closing their base will roil the local economy, but also that it will endanger U.S. security by concentrating too many forces in too few locales. The GAO’s assessment of past BRAC rounds avoids issues of geopolitics or the strategic benefits of force dispersal. But it attacks head-on the more common arguments of BRAC opponents: Closing bases costs more money than it saves or creates economic disasters for affected communities.

The past four BRAC rounds closed 97 major bases and reduced or realigned hundreds of smaller facilities. About 72 percent of the land involved (a total of 364,000 acres) already has been transferred, mostly to the control of state or local authorities but also to other federal agencies. Eighteen percent (91,000 acres) has been leased. Only 10 percent of the land still is held by the military while it completes environmental cleanup.

The GAO identifies “substantial” net savings from past BRAC rounds and hefty continuing annual savings, and auditors say most BRAC communities “have recovered or are recovering” from base closures, as measured by unemployment rates and per capita income growth. These key economic indicators show BRAC communities “generally faring well” compared with the rest of the country. Not addressed by congressional auditors, however, has been the effect of past BRAC rounds on military retirees, reservists, or their families—those who have the most to lose.

Tom Philpott is a freelance writer and syndicated news columnist. His column, "Military Update," appears in 48 daily newspapers throughout the United States and overseas.