And do we really want to be even more dependent than we are now?
BTW, the reminder of the original decision is quite right. Back then it was a rather harebrained scheme concerning F111s and various tiny and obscure islands, generally requiring massive and costly engineering work to support serious air bases, which would supposedly always be exactly where we needed them as well as being so much cheaper (despite the fact that we couldn't afford the F111s either...) Not to mention the problems of command and control between naval forces and air forces separated by a Berlin wall. Now it is a structure of huge political assumptions - we won't fight anybody good, if we do we'll have host nation support, anyway the Yanks will always play fairy godmother - resting on a contradiction (we need to be able to act anywhere in the world as quickly as humanly possible, but only as long as the Americans want to help and/or we have time to arrange host nation support).