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I don't think anyone is going to invade Germany if we dismantle those bases and bring the troops home.
They are not defense in nature, they are just there serve to serve our war machine. Most of them are in the west of Germany, and I don't think a French invasion of Germany is a security concern the US should spend billions preparing for.
For NATO responses to crises in and around Europe. NATO has intervened in many humanitarian and military crises since the end of World War II in Europe or nearby. In general, most of these interventions are US-led. Some noteworthy interventions recently have been the Bosnia/Herzogovinia War, the Kosovo War, the piracy incidents early in the Obama Administration, the Libyan Civil War. These bases are also frequent stop-over points for other bases throughout the Middle East, particularly in Turkey. Relevant to today, Russia invaded a European Democracy in 2014 (Ukraine) and took possession of several large Ukrainian regions and shot down a civilian airliner killing everyone on board. Russia still holds that territory today and is still trying to overthrow the Ukrainian government and replace it with Pro-Kremlin puppets. NATO's bases in Germany are some of the closest bases to Ukraine and Russia in Europe, and serve as a deterrent against Russia invading other European democracies and trying to replace their democratically elected governments.
The decision to remove troops from Germany is not being done for any sensical, legitimate reason. It's purely to harm American and German relations for petty amounts of money and because Russia does not want as many American troops in Europe. Trump does not get along with Angele Merkel, because she's a legitimately elected strong leader of a European Democracy and that's anathema for Trump, and Merkel signalled a month ago that she would not be coming to New York for the summer/fall meeting of the G7. Trump wanted this meeting because he wants opportunities to look presidential before the November election, and he takes Merkel not coming as a personal offense (though Macron, Trudeau, and others, have also signalled they won't attend). So in addition to trying to shake down Germany for more funding for NATO, he's also doing this because he hates Angela Merkel and loves Putin.
Germany also has 2 military training facilities in the United States. Many NATO members have military bases in the countries of other members, which helps coordination, training, and brings the countries closer together. We're allies afterall.
Trump is not pulling these troops out to "dismantle the war machine," he's doing so to intentionally hurt German & US relations, weaken NATO, and to make appeals to his handlers in the Kremlin.
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Trump's weird "nuclear proliferation is worse than climate change" is instructions from his handler. Putin is going to negotiate a one sided nuclear arms deal with Trump. If he tries to accelerate that between now and November-January at least we can take some comfort in knowing the Fix is not definitely in.
I think nuclear proliferation is really really bad.
Trump is a fucking idiot, but nuclear disarmament is good.
Very good even.
Getting to zero nukes can be a tad tricky, but I think if the US just retired 90% of its nuclear arsenal today nothing bad will happen. We're just gonna save money and reduce the chance of a nuclear holocaust.
Not a bot, just recently was given posting privileges. Being anti American doesn't make me Russian, I am neither
That's a rather simplistic and shortsighted way of looking at a complex geopolitical situation. These troops are not meant to just sit there and defend a hill somewhere until the enemy attacks.
They're stationed in germany because it's a central place in europe from where you can reach every possible theater of war, including the middle east. Of course Russia will not send troops to conquer a thriving state like Germany like it's 1910.
The big fear of the NATO was always that Putin goes after the weaker states like the Baltics, just like he did in the Ukraine and that he weakens the entirety of the EU step by step this way.
I think even a not russian bot should understand that being anti american is a unusual job description for the President of the United States of America
I don't think that droning kids in Yemen and doing refueling stops on the way to Africa and Afghanistan (which is mostly what the US military we do in Germany these days) is protecting the Baltics.
Also don't worry, you have US military in the Blatics. I don't know exactly what their missions there, not sure Mike Pompeo told us, but you have American tanks in Lithuania now, for freedom.
The US military always say it's protecting peace everywhere it goes, but I don't buy it, we spend a stupid amount of money on that shit and I don't think it makes anyone safe.
I don't think Russian military pose a threat to Germany, but if you're so concerned, why not sit down with Russia and have some actual peace talks. Our answer to all our problem is more military and I don't think it has been working terribly well.
This is so clearly done to punish Germany, it takes malicious intent to frame it as Germany kicking the soldiers out.
This. US propaganda is so deeply rooted in their culture that even progressive people admire the US military and show that "we superior others inferior" line of thinking.
Yep, we've got tanks, APCs, IFVs, guns, explosives, troops, and all other kinds of great things from the US and it makes us feel pretty fuckin good.
The mission is just training while being an overall deterrent to the Russian forces. Anything US here is always on rotation. Come in, stay for a few months doing training with our and other countries' troops, leave and have the next batch of troops come in and repeat.
it would be very good if that was actually what was happening here but it's not. It's almost certainly going to create more friction and accelerationism from Putin - Biden will I do the changes and Putin will cry "this is provocation!"
no good thing is happening here no matter how you slice it.
why should a peaceful country have peace talks witha dishonest belligerent expansionist mafia state it isn't actually at war with? Until Russia somehow sloughs off this undemocratic parasite they are going to continue this exact path no matter what olive branches other countries proffer. Russia is not an honest actor in the region and won't be until it experiences significant change of leadership. At least our criminal president is incompetent.
putin is about to change Russian constitutional law again to enable his presidency - effectively for life and it's indefensible and they deserve better.
he doesn't have peaceful intentions, period. He's not even interested in normalizing his own economy. There's absolutely zero reason Germany should offer anything except folded arms or a middle finger.
I always felt that we can stay in German bases if Germany wants us there, and it would be really great if Germany decided how many American troops should be stationed in Germany rather than America.
But fuck that, world police, we trust the US government to know best always.
To give you guys some perspective on German opinions according to a poll conducted two years ago, 42% of Germans wanted the US army to leave Germany, 37% wanted them to stay (the rest was undecided / no opinion). On the political spectrum it's mostly people voting for leftist parties that oppose US presence (but also the far-right AfD, for different reasons of course), while conservatives and centrists (so our government supporters) are more inclined to support US presence. [Source in German]
Here is also an article that discusses what the US Army's biggest base in Ramstein is actually for and why it's so controversial in Germany:
Like I said in my earlier post, the US army is in Germany to wage war in the Middle East.
Can you imagine? Our government acts like it has no clue what the US army is doing on OUR territory. Would Americans ever accept a foreign nation on their soil doing secret military operations? Allies or not, this is just unacceptable.
Well, it's all lies anyway, because we do not want to be held liable for US war crimes.
Here is also an article that discusses what the US Army's biggest base in Ramstein is actually for and why it's so controversial in Germany:
Like I said in my earlier post, the US army is in Germany to wage war in the Middle East.
Can you imagine? Our government acts like it has no clue what the US army is doing on OUR territory. Would Americans ever accept a foreign nation on their soil doing secret military operations? Allies or not, this is just unacceptable.
Well, it's all lies anyway, because we do not want to be held liable for US war crimes.
Not a single solitary German was involved in the decision, not a single solitary US miltary base is getting closed in Germany and Trump openly embraces imperialism, torture and war crimes.
I know anti imperialists are usually anti american first and anti imperialistic 732th, but the amount of spinning makes me dizzy.
apparently you are dizzy, because your post here is just contradiction after contradiction: this move is bad because Germany wasn't involved but lmao if you think it's going to have any significant impact, Trump is bad because he embraces imperialism but lmao I hate anti-imperialists
also, you didn't actually respond to anything the post you quoted said... it was just laying out a framework for understanding why US troops bouncing from Germany would be more a positive than a negative
you have, though, inadvertently tapped into an unfortunate truth: it's definitely hard to be coherently anti-imperialism without also being at least a touch anti-American
A imperialistic move, done by a Imperialistic President who openly embraces imperialism, war crimes and torture, which will not limit the amount of imperialism, torture and warcrimes, done for the purpose of punishing a country for not doing enough for imperialism, is getting applauded by you because you hate America.
Don't worry my fellow Americans, only some shitty bases around Stuttgart are gonna be closed. Ramstein Air Base will of course NOT be closed, so you can keep applauding to your troops for drone-striking brown people all around the world in your name and for FREEDOM.
If they invaded eastern europe tomorrow do you see the EU doing anything about it?
Friend, if you really don't want them, we here in Eastern Europe will gladly take them. Send the nukes too.
Beats a friendly visit from Ivan any day of the week.
Yeah, that aint going away, the US will keep bombing weddings and killing civilians , women and children among them, from german soil.
You have to consider that the very moment Germany would kick out all of the US troops, NATO would end to exist. And believe me, a lot of countries neighboring Germany would be very pissed, should this ever happen.
Even though I think removing American military from the world is a good thing, that's not really what's happening here. They're just being moved back and relocated for the most part.
End of day, if it's something Putin wants, it's not a good thing. For one, that's him controlling the US military and forcing the US President to do his bidding with nothing but a phone call. Secondly, he wants to weaken the region and NATO and shuffling out US Military without the input from the countries of that region it would impact is pretty nefarious. He literally just did it on a whim because daddy called. That's scary.
End of day, if it's something Putin wants, it's not a good thing. For one, that's him controlling the US military and forcing the US President to do his bidding with nothing but a phone call. Secondly, he wants to weaken the region and NATO and shuffling out US Military without the input from the countries of that region it would impact is pretty nefarious. He literally just did it on a whim because daddy called. That's scary.
If Trump would move all troops to Belgium/Poland would that also end NATO?
If Germany got a far right/left government and decided to leave NATO, would that end NATO?
The only one that can end the NATO is the US and that is obviously not in their interest.
Yes it would. That's why Ramstein and other actually important bases will stay no matter what Clown sits in the White House.
Germany would become a hardcore outsider, triggering some really interesting events, possibly an alliance with Russia, Yep, NATO as we know it now would definitely end to exist.
Is it though? The US is gonna be challenged by China in the near future, not by any European country. It would be way smarter to invest into new alliances with Asian countries that are sceptical or eeven afraid of a rising China. NATO is also expensive as fuck for the US taxpayer. But hey, Americans and smart decisions right? 🤣
NATO and presence within the EU is of major geopolitical importance for the USA. No way is the US just gonna end NATO. It does not make sense at all.
I think this is generally true everywhere the US has bases.
In South Korea and Japan it is generally right wingers who supports of US military presence and most people on the left hate it. Just like in Europe. You do have some far right people who want the US out for nationalistic reason, but they tend to be pretty small.
I mean America has A LOT of bases in A LOT of countries, so I can't know for sure there isn't some left leaning movement somewhere around the world that like the US Air force, but I think it's kinda unlikely.
Germanys geographic position and level of infrastructure is key to any credible NATO deployment without it NATO is useless
The US military has a long and proud tradition of following what civilian leadership tell them to (it is by far the best thing about the US military and I don't think Americans understand that it's not normal). If a president decide to close Ramstein and bring the troops home, you'll probably get some right wing think tanks and Lockheed Martin execs writing op eds in the NYT about this is a gift to the current boogeyman we justify our defense budget with, but I don't think the military is going to do a coup to keep an airfield in Germany.
It is possible to cut the defense budget, for real, we just need to stop being so scared of everything all the time.
I don't think I've ever seen that particular phrase used when it wasn't part of a bad-faith argument.
And conservatives and war hawks in the US screamed about every single one of those withdrawals like it dooming the free world.
At least back then people on the left seemed to be mostly for troop reduction and military budget cuts, these days, I donno if it was Obama's embrace of the war on terror or what, but it feels like most Democratic voters now believe that every US soldier deployed anywhere in the world is essential.
Lol of course people don't use that particular phrase. But you have loads of people on this forum that have the principle that almost anything is fine as long as it goes against Trump or gets him out of office. Yes, of course he's total garbage and yes, of course it's important we get him out of office, but that doesn't mean you just take whatever position that's opposite of his and forgo all of your principles just to spite Trump. There's loads of that here, just look at all the TLP shit.
scandalous accusation!
but doubling down on the fact of Trump being imperialistic, which is true, doesn't actually do anything to explain how reducing the presence of American troops overseas is imperialistic
whatever Trump's reasoning, as that poster laid out and you didn't actually answer to at all, there's a strong anti-imperialistic logic to stripping down the infrastructure with which America imposes its will on the world and sustains wars and terrorizes populations
"but this is just Trump poking Germany in the eye and America's capacity for imperialism almost entirely remains!" just makes for an incoherent argument where the boundlessness of the American imperialistic tendency justifies the continuation of its tools of imperialism