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U.S. to Withdraw 5k Troops from Germany, Pentagon Says

nytimes.com

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Re: U.S. to Withdraw 5k Troops from Germany, Pentagon Says

#11

Post by [deleted] »

arvid-lind wrote: post #7
kogus wrote: post #4

If this is the Trump Administration's "punishment" for "disloyalty", then we are in for a treat. Hopefully US forces can also be withdrawn from Japan, Iraq, Italy, Guam, and the other 180 locations where they are currently unnecessarily stationed.

I'm thinking it's meant to appear as a punishment for disloyalty, but withdrawing troops like this only hurts the US and NATO. As we've seen in the Middle East recently, the hosts don't get any kind of security guarantees. Overall it meets the primary directive of this administration, which is to weaken the United States as a superpower and make way for Russia.

[deleted]

Re: U.S. to Withdraw 5k Troops from Germany, Pentagon Says

#14

Post by trhway »

rayiner wrote: post #12

Good. It’s not 1945 anymore, we don’t need to keep occupying Germany.

now Germany has a choice - to spend hundreds of billions for conventionally armed military to defend itself and still face risks of war or just a few billions to develop and produce nukes (using already existing Pu from the power plants) and have everlasting peace. Germans are rational people as i heard.

Re: U.S. to Withdraw 5k Troops from Germany, Pentagon Says

#16

Post by tharkun__ »

kogus wrote: post #4

If this is the Trump Administration's "punishment" for "disloyalty", then we are in for a treat. Hopefully US forces can also be withdrawn from Japan, Iraq, Italy, Guam, and the other 180 locations where they are currently unnecessarily stationed.

Withdrawing 5k troops that are probably just rotational troops that ... go home without replenishment is different from actually shutting down bases.

Unless Germany denies the US Ramstein airbase and spying operations, you can safely bet they'll stay. Even if they withdraw everything that isn't required to just keep operating the airbase and listening posts, they'll at least keep those around for as long as they are able to actually use them.

Re: U.S. to Withdraw 5k Troops from Germany, Pentagon Says

#18

Post by icegreentea2 »

karim79 wrote: post #13

Germany is silent on the Gaza genocide, and silent on the ethnic cleansing of Lebanon. Also Donald Trump doesn't have a fucking clue. To get back to the point, I actually do not understand why there are any US soldiers here to begin with. Is it just posturing?

There are two broad reasons why the US has troops in Germany (and in Europe overall).

1. Because the Europeans wanted them there. NATO was a big security blanket, and certainly since the end of the cold war, up to say... 2014, America -wanted- a compliant Europe.

2. Because Europe is an amazing springboard into the middle east, and America just can't help but get itself involved in dropping bombs on the middle east.

1 ties into 2. A compliant Europe is less likely to raise objections to being used as a forward base for bombing Iraqis and Iranians. It's only in the last 10-15 years that the US realized that perhaps it was/had squandered it's lead to China, and dropped the ball (Europe at fault too) on properly containing (or addressing) Russia, and it would sure be nice if it could focus on the Pacific.

Re: U.S. to Withdraw 5k Troops from Germany, Pentagon Says

#20

Post by Ksv28 »

trhway wrote: post #14
rayiner wrote: post #12

Good. It’s not 1945 anymore, we don’t need to keep occupying Germany.

now Germany has a choice - to spend hundreds of billions for conventionally armed military to defend itself and still face risks of war or just a few billions to develop and produce nukes (using already existing Pu from the power plants) and have everlasting peace. Germans are rational people as i heard.

They can learn a lot from the Swiss who spend a whole lot of less time and energy reacting daily to what the US thinks, says and does.
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