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On September 08 2012 13:50 Cocoabean wrote:
Keep military presence where it's actually necessary.
Having over 100,000 troops situated in Germany/Japan/Italy/UK is way overboard. Nothing is going to happen to Italy or the UK any time soon.
I understand the point of military presence in regions of the world to play the political game, but 35k in Japan? What, is China going to launch an all out assault on Japan tomorrow (obvious not)?
I think the force in Japan is because aren't they still restricted on their military?
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On September 08 2012 13:57 Slaughter wrote:
What is the point of so many in Germany? Some kind of close reserve force for the Mid East?
There's a country to the east of Germany that the U.S. and much of Europe does not entirely trust.
I believe Germany also has limits on its military.
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I feel like the general populations are the only groups that wants us out. If the people in charge wanted us gone, we'd be gone.
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On September 08 2012 13:50 Cocoabean wrote:
Keep military presence where it's actually necessary.
Having over 100,000 troops situated in Germany/Japan/Italy/UK is way overboard. Nothing is going to happen to Italy or the UK any time soon.
I understand the point of military presence in regions of the world to play the political game, but 35k in Japan? What, is China going to launch an all out assault on Japan tomorrow (obvious not)?
Doesn't America need to have the Pacific fleet stationed near China to conduct some gunboat diplomacy? Whenever China does anything America doesn't like, I hear about how a carrier is whipping its big dick around the Taiwan straits.
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On September 08 2012 14:01 Whitley wrote:
I feel like the general populations are the only groups that wants us out. If the people in charge wanted us gone, we'd be gone.
Yea but shouldn't the people in charge take into consideration that they want the US troops out? I know Japan has had some movement towards reducing the amount of US troops there.
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On September 08 2012 14:03 The_LiNk wrote:Show nested quote +On September 08 2012 13:50 Cocoabean wrote:
Keep military presence where it's actually necessary.
Having over 100,000 troops situated in Germany/Japan/Italy/UK is way overboard. Nothing is going to happen to Italy or the UK any time soon.
I understand the point of military presence in regions of the world to play the political game, but 35k in Japan? What, is China going to launch an all out assault on Japan tomorrow (obvious not)?
Doesn't America need to have the Pacific fleet stationed near China to conduct some gunboat diplomacy? Whenever China does anything America doesn't like, I hear about how a carrier is whipping its big dick around the Taiwan straits.
I think the Gov of Japan wants the US there for that purpose (obviously the US also wants it as well). Due to various disagreements about the waters.
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On September 08 2012 13:26 CajunMan wrote:Show nested quote +On September 08 2012 13:20 DannyJ wrote:
The Germany one does seem kind of strange. Obviously there was a reason why there were so many troops there in the past and now it's a central hub to the East, but 50k seems pretty excessive. We like the think its been thousands of years since the last war but it's only been 70-75 years since that country tried to take over the world. I mean now ya it is less important but in retrospect 75 years is nothing.
are u really saying what i think you are saying?
seriously... wtf?
on topic :
i dont really care all that much. i think it would be better for the us to reduce cost tho.
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On September 08 2012 14:03 Slaughter wrote:Show nested quote +On September 08 2012 14:01 Whitley wrote:
I feel like the general populations are the only groups that wants us out. If the people in charge wanted us gone, we'd be gone. Yea but shouldn't the people in charge take into consideration that they want the US troops out? I know Japan has had some movement towards reducing the amount of US troops there.
I'm not big into politics so anything I say take as an uninformed's opinion.
Sure, they should take the peoples wants into consideration. But I do think they have a better idea of whats going on in the world then the general populations opinion based on what they read online and saw on TV. Maybe they have good reason to keep us there regardless of what the people want/think. Maybe they know things?
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To support an airforce world wide you need basis world wide
The bases in germany and italy for example could (and have been) used for action in the middle east, the bases in japan for action in korea.
The basis do not need to have a direct relation with the country they are in.
As far as i know most usa basis overseas are their to support the air force or navy.
Other countrys dont need basis in the usa because they dont have to support a world wide operating airforce and navy.
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"50,000+ troops in Germany"
Wow i really did not know We (the US) still have such a high number of troops in Germany. What is the purpose? The cold war is over and there is no one in Europe that wants war. Seems useless
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If the United States cut it's defense budget by 3/4ths it would still be significantly higher than any other country. I'm sure we could spend those billions of dollars more wisely--for instance in education.
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If we're gonna be the world's policeman, we'd better be getting paid for it. That's too expensive a job to do for free.
I don't think we're getting paid for it (at least, not enough to warrant the expense), and I don't think we want to ask to get paid for it. So, I'm all for cutting down.
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On September 08 2012 14:23 RebelSlayer wrote:
If the United States cut it's defense budget by 3/4ths it would still be significantly higher than any other country. I'm sure we could spend those billions of dollars more wisely--for instance in education.
The problem is that the corporations that make military equipment have huge pulls in Congress because they "donate" money to people who will vote for things that would make them even more money...and if you ever said you want to reduce military spending, then you're labled "anti-patriotic" which is just stupid.
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On September 08 2012 14:22 mrRoflpwn wrote:
"50,000+ troops in Germany"
Wow i really did not know We (the US) still have such a high number of troops in Germany. What is the purpose? The cold war is over and there is no one in Europe that wants war. Seems useless
Mostly at Ramstein. Mostly to maintain Ramstein.
I think having certain strategic bases (Ramstein, something in the Pacific) is reasonable for national security.
I think a lot of the covert stuff we did in the 60s-80s is despicable, and am somewhat worried it is still going on.
We should pull troops back, but you have to be pragmatic here.
We should cut budget too.
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Should we draw down some of our forces overseas? Probably. Should we bring them ALL home? No.
For example, 9,000 troops in the UK really isn't all that many. I think many people see a number like 9,000 and think, "Oh my god that's a lot of people." when it really isn't. The military forces in the UK are there in multiple capacities but are mainly there as liaisons and for joint training.
I know that our special forces train with the SAS (and British troops come here to train as well), our intelligence agencies work together (remember each service branch has it's own intelligence agency), and our air forces and navies work together.
As for some of the bigger numbers, yes we could probably draw them down. The troops in Korea I wonder about as I'm not informed enough about how well South Korea can defend itself if North Korea decides to invade.
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The US government puts the image of the country at risk when it retains military presence in places like Saudi Arabia, Japan, Iraq, South Korea, etc. The fact that US citizen soldiers keep getting caught raping/killing little girls in Many places doesn't help this cause, either. It seems that the utility no longer outweighs the negative impact.
+ Show Spoiler +
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the excessive amount of troops in germany has historical reasons. during the cold war, germany was the most important country (both economically and strategically) that was bordering warsaw pact countries. a soviet invasion of western europe would almost certainly have seen its pivotal battles on german ground. additionally, the US wanted to position their nukes as close to the iron curtain and to moscow as possible - at ramstein.
the bases in italy are mainly airforce bases that allow the US to quickly reach the former yugoslavian states (remember the wars there in the 90s?) and the middle east. btw, this is also the main reason why turkey is a member of the NATO. the bases in japan, the philippines and korea serve the purpose of creating a balance in the region so that china doesnt bully around its small neighbors. and the bases in south korea are obviously also necessary to deter north korea.
all in all, i pretty much agree with obama though. the military presence in eastern asia is extremely important, in all other regions of the world, the US are overextending themselves and should reduce their troops.
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The US economy is based on military spending, they'll always find a way to justify it ("patriotism" is the strongest argument, along with some retarded logic such as "I don't support the gov, but I support the troops")
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On September 08 2012 13:53 MountainDewJunkie wrote:Show nested quote +On September 08 2012 13:46 JudicatorHammurabi wrote:
Like every superpowerful nation in history, we are an Imperialist nation. Europe, much of the Far East, and other lands are under our grip. Other countries can easily be paid off or intimidated, as has been done often. Any country that steps out of line, we destruct and of course justify it with the typical "humanitarian / democracy" garbage. The early 1990s were the golden age, with the collapse of the Soviet Union, the US pretty much owned the world. We had so much power, we led the UN to enforce the most brutal sanctions ever made, and for 12 years at that, which caused a Holodomor-like disaster in Iraq, except with economic and social collapse on top of that.
Moral of the story is, the US is, proportionally to other states, the most powerful nation in history, and it is not to be fucked with. It's not the way I like it, but it's the way it is. Anyone who thinks we're going to reduce our military presence and consequentially our control and influence in foreign countries is delusional. It's not going to happen, and no country has done it unless it literally was not worth it at all or could not be sustained. But how long can the party last? The debt is rising so quickly there's no hope of stopping it. Our spending is out of control. Funny how we overlook gross rights violations by China because we could not afford to have them as an enemy.
Gross rights violations have been overlooked for political reasons for countries all over the world since a long time during the entire Cold War and after. It sucks, but it's how it is.(He may be a sonuvabitch but he's our sonuvabitch etc etc.)
Occupying counties on the other side of the globe does not result in any long term solution. You need to only interfere in quick and concise steps to prevent genocide or disasters. Unfortunately lessons learned in Vietnam were quickly forgotten in Iraq and Afghanistan, and we still let Rwanda happen for some reason. First Gulf War and Croatia went pretty well though.
The US and China have no reason whatsoever to be antagonists other than for some dick measuring contests for warmongering idiots (or from lingering brainwashing of the Cold War). It's actually the perfect partnership especially when the USSR was still around. I think something is simply wrong these days as China and Russia are typically allied against the US, it shouldn't be this way at all. China has everything to gain from a long term alliance with the US as they are surrounding on all sides by hostile and/or powerful nations.
Also, the people of China prefer to tolerate the CCP rather than to be invaded and controlled by any foreign power. Patriotism is a huge pillar of support for the Communist party. There's a reason why even during the worse years of famine, Mao could get away with spending money on nuke research and even be acclaimed for it to this day. Ultimately, the more you threaten China, the more you would end up uniting them and ironically, protect the CCP.
You want to destroy the CCP, you expose them to their people and empower them instead of burning their house down. Totalitarian regimes are completely nullified when met with openness (and even democracies share some of their fear, given Wikileaks), but refueled and galvanized by foreign occupation no matter how much their own leaders actually suck.
So far it's been working out alright for China, today's CCP's grasp on China is severely weakened. They cannot survive another 1989, even slightly lower economic growth can put them into jeopardy. Of course, they will continue to grab on for dear life for as long as they can until they are 1) overthrown or 2) reformed from within. American military threats will actually not help neither processes as it tends to put the hardliners of the party in favorable light.
(I wonder if the Cuban regime is actually helped by the American blockade, it perpetuates the "we vs. them" mentality and probably prevent Cubans from seeing what they are missing.)
IMO It's becoming clear that the US should tailor down their hard power a bit to help their long term soft power and therefore consolidate their status as the leader of the world. The more paranoid and controlling, the more soft power it will lose, and American hegemony will gradually disappear as the rest of the world catches up (which should be welcomed by every humanist as a basically democratic dynamic).
My 2 cents.
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As an American myself I can say we need to drastically bring home our troops. I do not think we should bring all of them home, but some. I personally think we need to bring home our troops from Japan, Germany, Italy, and the UK specifically. I could understand stationing troops in country's like Korea, or problem zones.
Although something to note is that part of the reason why a lot of people join the U.S. military is so they can travel to different country's. I have friends who live in all the the country's I spoke of who are in the military and they love it. I don't think they would be in the military if they had to sit in the U.S. So that's something to look into as well, seriously thought we have so many problems here we need to fix before we try to fix the world. Just my two cents though, what do I know.
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EPT
