US to withdraw nearly 12,000 troops from Germany in move that will cost billions and take years

There is utility in having bases there just to make it easier to communicate troops, equipment, planes, and wounded/KIA remains. Beyond that, I am fine with the US reducing our global footprint, or at least our boot heel.

 

Another victory for Putin by Trump. Whatever money Russia paid to help Trump in 2016 has paid better dividends than even Putin could have hoped. Russia can even contract the murder of US soldiers with impunity. Amazing.

 

Hold on here --- easier to communicate troops, equipment planes, wounded KIA - doing what ? We will not be fighting Russia - so who will we be fighting in Poland ?

 

Good post - except we will not see them building up. If Russia was to attack the homeland of a significant EU Nation - France, Germany, England and so on - it is not going to be conventional.

First off - Russia does not have the conventional equipment to launch such an attack and 2) since any such war would go nuclear prior to one nation actually taking the homeland of the other ... might as well that part out of the way right from the get go - annihilate each other - at which point conventional forces are useless.

 

Trump is kissing ass alright - but it is not Putin's anus that is getting tongue action - you have mistaken the identity of Trumps lover.

 

Aside point that there are no US troops in the Baltics to support them, but German troops who do so ...
We Germans have in Euro / USD or whatever currency after the USA the second biggest military budget in NATO! Sure, it is only about 1.5% currently, but it is only a duty for 2% from 2024 on and not now! But since, as everywhere in the world, the GDP is falling due to Corona, the currently more than 50 billion Euros military budget of us can quickly meet exactly this 2% in purely mathematical terms ... but even then, of course, there will still be complaints, eh? For no reason now, but then it will happen even more for no reason!

Or put them on the border to Mexico and maybe also to evil lefty Canada

Aside fact that you don't pay a single Cent of rent in Germany but the German taxpayer payed all the time for the US troops in Germany big money ...
The serious question is, why and for what are these US troops in Germany again? To defend Germany and Europe ... and of so, against whom again please?
The reality is that the US bases in Germany are used for own American geo political and strategic interest which have nothing to do with NATO and defending Germany or Europe. They are only FOBs (Forward Operating Bases) for these pure American interests and activities in other areas like the ME and nothing else!
And another reality is that the small fighting forces in these troops are unimportant ... most National Guards of US states are muliple times more powerful as what is stationed in Germany and in Europe at all! So really a huge defending help against a non aggressive Russia which was made and build up as new cold war enemy by the US without any reason.

So yes ... why shall we want to have them at us in Germany?

As Bluecher after you still answered, the EU still does and can do now much easier with no always blocking UK in the EU anymore. And in all silent it still happened inside the NATO! For example ... The Netherlands have reduced their tank forces to only 1 tank company with Leopard 2A6 Main Battle tanks. This Dutch tank company is part of a German tank battalion ... the German battalion is in turn part of the German-Dutch brigade ... and this brigade is again part of an army corps consisting exclusively of Germans, Dutch, Belgians and Danes (and the unimportant rest of British Rhine Army). There is also, for example, a German-French brigade and and and ... all still created and existing under the umbrella of NATO, but this umbrella can change any time if necessary!

The funny thing is that the American righties and Republican US governments always saw something bad in it and are against it ... because it weakens US influence in Europe!

Correct ... but these bases served and still serve as FOB for ay US action in ME and Africa. For example, any US soldier ever wounded or killed in Iraq since 2003 is brought first to Ramstein base and wounded then to the huge US military hospital in Landstuhl.

And your question about who will be fighting in Poland ... it will be done by Germany and other European NATO members in majority if necessary. But because Russia is not threating Poland or anyone else to attack them, the quetion is, who will attack Poland at least?

 

Bottom line - Russia and the EU are not going to war over Poland but, if such a thing should happen - that war would remain inside Poland's borders sans moving troops/equipment through Belarus/Lithuania because they simply don't have the equipment for an amphibious assault.

What Russia and/or the "significant" EU nations defending Poland will not be doing is attacking each other's homeland.

 

Do we have a permanent base in Poland? Last I heard, we just rotate some with NATO.

 

No idea - this convo is in relation to the idea of moving the troops from Germany to Poland

 

BS.

 

Correct ... all about some 4,500 soldiers.
There was a big headline in 2018 about big deployment of US troops in Poland ... you remember "Fort Trump" blabbering?
Well ... now in 2020 there is a big silence about and the disputes about between US and Poland. One one side it is of course the financial aspect about who of both pay how much for it and so on. Poland agreed to take 2 billion USD but Trump administration wants that Poland pays much more what Poland denies to do.
But there are also some other issues of dipute too ... and in my opinion a kind of American impudence! Washington wants enhanced legal immunity, for example in situations where U.S. troops are accused of crimes on Polish soil, but Poland is balking ... and this with all rights!
Think about anyone else demands this for their bases or contingents of troops in the USA and how you will react to such a demand in the USA

 

If we don't have a base, there is really nowhere to move them to

 

Thank you for the thoughtful and informative response

 

You keep trying to distract attention away from Trump's relationship with Putin.

That he has had corrupt relations with a lot of other people I could have told you years ago, David Cay Johnston...

 

Perhaps Poland can create a make-shift barracks - and have Polish sausage parties every night

 

You keep trying to distract attention away from Trumps relationship with other foreign interests - interests who have far more say over Trump than Putin - akin to comparing a hurricane to a rain drop.

 

The post you are quoting mentions "other foreign interests".

In terms of the national interest, you have it precisely backwards. Putin getting a grip on Trump's nuts trumps his criminal activity before he became president.

Like comparing the asteroid that killed the dinosaurs to a rain drop.

 

You are the one who has it backwards - because you have no clue who the foreign interests that influence Trump are - so you have no clue what you are comparing.

 

You are such a tease.

I mentioned David Cay Johnston... I know you are trying to pull a fast one.

So wow us, big guy.

 

No idea who that is ... How is this fellow some big influence on Trump ?

 

Why am I not surprised.

DCJ is a business and tax prof that has been making on the side reporting on Trump for decades. Type his name into Amazon.

And once again, you pwomised but didn't deliver.

Such a tease.

 

That isn't big money influence - very poor attempt.

Here again are your clues

1) Sugardaddy who bailed Trump out
2) Ivanka was shagging Sugar Daddy's son !
3) Trump appointed Sugardaddy's foot soldier "Wilbur Ross" to Commerce Secretary

So you do have "A Name - Wibur Ross" now you just have to figure out who his boss is - and you will have solved the puzzle of the snowflake in a blizzard.

Sugar Daddy being the Blizzard

 

You said that before...

This is a national election, and matters of national interest take priority. Trump's hanky panky with Putin is an ongoing threat.

Kushner is just another crook.

 

What relationship does Trump have with Putin? The ones who are saying these things for political gain and also to keep us from bettering relations with Russia, should either go to a psychiatrist or tried for treason, because they either know not what they're doing, or they do know what they're doing and simply don't care.

Politico

The following open letter was signed by 103 foreign-policy experts, whose names and affiliations appear below.

U.S.-Russia relations are at a dangerous dead end that threatens the U.S. national interest. The risk of a military confrontation that could go nuclear is again real. We are drifting toward a fraught nuclear arms race, with our foreign-policy arsenal reduced mainly to reactions, sanctions, public shaming and congressional resolutions. The global Covid-19 pandemic and the resulting serious worldwide economic decline, rather than fostering cooperation, have only reinforced the current downward trajectory.

Meanwhile, the great challenges to peace and our well-being that demand U.S.-Russia cooperation, including the existential threats of nuclear war and climate change, go unattended. Because the stakes are so high, both in the dangers they entail and the costs they contain, we believe that a careful, dispassionate analysis and change of our current course are imperative.

https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2020/08/05/open-letter-russia-policy-391434​

 

It's very easy to know who Donald Trumps foreign interests are. All one has to do is see which nations and which people gained politically and economically, and which nations and people's didn't gain.