Sebastian Schmidt is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science at Johns Hopkins University. His research interests include the historical origins and sociological foundations of security strategies, questions of international order, the modalities of American influence in the world, international monetary relations, and sovereignty. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in American Political Science Review, International Organization, International Studies Quarterly, West European Politics, Journal of Global Security Studies, and International Studies Review. His current and future work is focused on the elaboration of pragmatist and allied theoretical perspectives on international politics, with a particular emphasis on monetary relations and postwar American security practices. His first book is Armed Guests: Territorial Sovereignty and Foreign Military Basing (Oxford University Press, 2020).
The practice of maintaining a long-term, peacetime military presence in another state (or “sovereign basing”) only developed in the last century. Before World War II, a foreign military presence usually meant one of three things: occupation, colonization, or a wartime alliance. This changed radically in the years after 1945.