As Division Officer for Facility Control Office, Philippines, I was heavily involved in the base closures of Clark AB, NAVSTA Subic Bay, and NAS Cubi Pt, and left the area Nov 1992.

We're talking $Billions of dollars savings out of the DOD budget annually. But what do you give up?
1. High Failure Rate items logistic support.
2. Refueling capability
3. Strategic air/land/sea support in a timely manner.
4. Communications support
5. Unique training opportunities / terrain / weapons / bomb ranges etc..
6. Diplomatic MBA's as their military civilian workforce overseas competes with local economies, not to mention future negotiations relating to Military Base Agreements as the need arises.

Case in point. We are currently flying our bombers out of Diego Garcia, a small island in the middle of the Indian Ocean, most people don't even know exists for missions against the Middle East. Anderson AFB Guam provided much needed fuel and logistic support to get them to Diego Garcia. Communication frequency support must be coordinated directly with host nations in order to fly combat missions, deploy troops and vehicles. Today, those issues are in place. But the host nations may be quick to recoup those frequencies and utilize them for commercial means as they see fit as a sovereign nation.

You need only look at the diplomatic situation in the Philippines and elsewhere that have been negatively impacted by base closures to see the host government expectations are so much higher today than they were years past. Is it worth it? Of course if you have the mentality that sovereign nations can police their own.

60k a large number? shoot...we have 28k in S. Korea. I think a better question might be...where are the troops and what are they doing? Europe is fairly big......