Rabson discusses the new book, Base Towns: Local Contestation of the U.S. Military in Korea and Japan with the author, Claudia Junghyun Kim, who traces contentious politics surrounding twenty U.S. military bases across Japan and Korea—two of the largest U.S. base hosts in the world. Kim's book focuses on the municipalities hosting these bases and differing levels of community acceptance and resistance over time. The following excerpt from the book introduces key actors who shape base-community relations and their many twists and turns.