---

On July 14, at GMF’s Brussels Transatlantic Center, Transatlantic Fellow Alexander A. Cooley held a seminar on “US Military Bases and Democratization: Can the U.S. Manage the Balance?” to present the results of his research as a Fellow. The presentation was part of a bigger book project that Cooley has been working on about how the United States deals with the balance between maintaining military bases in non-democratic countries and its broader commitment to promoting democracy.  Cooley’s presentation included historical examples from East Asia and Europe and then focused on the current bases in Central Asia and the Black Sea region.   Cooley’s talk contrasted the contested nature of the present U.S. basing presence in Central Asia, especially Uzbekistan, with the relatively supportive political environment that is likely to surround the new U.S. bases in democratic Romania and Bulgaria.  He underscored how the United States can lose broad international legitimacy by dealing with non-democratic regimes, and even how the United States risks losing its actual military presence in the event of a sudden democratic transition in that host country.  European members of NATO and EU officials in attendance discussed how Europeans face many of the same dilemmas in dealing with autocratic governments in the Caucasus, Central Asia, and the Middle East.  The discussion helped frame many of the broader issues involved in the balancing of promoting democratization with the need for maintaining military cooperation.   Cooley returns to teaching at Barnard College at Columbia University in New York City, where he will resume teaching courses on international politics.  His first book, Logics of Hierarchy: The Organization of Empires, States and Military Occupations, will be published by Cornell University Press in November 2005.   Alexander A. Cooley was a Transatlantic Fellow with the German Marshall Fund from March to August of 2005.  He was previously the recipient of a GMF Research Fellowship.