MindzEye
Wayward Ditch Pig
Troops make a hell of a lot of money being based outside their home country. Also, most bases back the USA can easily absorb the amount of personnel it has based overseas, so with that comes the added savings of not needing to operate these extra bases. Canada saved a lot of money when they closed down CFB Lahr in Germany for example.
The Troops still need to be paid, the operational capabilities will need to be required, etc. According to the LA Times article, the cost in maintaining the bases is 10 Billion worldwide....not exactly a massive amount of money in the grand scheme of the US military budget.
You're right, those bases did handle a tremendous amount of logistics for the Americans. Won't dispute that. That said, these bases will still be there and after seeing what NATO can build up in Afghanistan from scratch over the course of a year, I'm not worried about unmothballing a base in Germany or elsewhere. These bases are luxuries, not necessities.
A fair chunk of the US military budget is in political luxuries of far less real use than the international power projection ability these bases provide. The general opinion from the experts on this is that these bases are much closer to necessities that you seem to be suggesting.
China? Please. What country has a base that houses 50 thousand Chinese soldiers? No where, that's who.
I'm not sure if you could miss the point more if you were trying to. I'm not comparing the Chinese capability to US capability. That would be silly. I'm simply using the Chinese desire to project military power internationally as further proof in the obvious benefits that "great powers" see in this concept that you continue to ignore the importance of.
The US has floating military bases and the ability to project power all around the globe and they don't need bases in Germany, S. Korea and Japan to do so.
Well, that's just silly talk. I'm kind of shocked that a soldier is discounting the influence that boots on the ground, available in short order, would have in power projection.
NATO has pushed 4000 soldiers into the Baltics with the capacity for 20 times that number if needed and they don't need a permanent base to do so. Took about a year. Not all that expensive. [/quote]
That's kind of the point of having troops in the region...so that it doesn't take a year. Kind of difficult to manage crisis situations if it takes weeks or months to put strength on the ground.
As for your point that every great power has done it, granted. In fairness to those great powers, they lived in a time where they had direct military rivals who were constantly pushing to take over their spot. The US hasn't been in a war that threatened its hold on it's global power since 1939-1945, yet it maintains these expensive troop deployments and base operations long after that.
Well, there was the whole soviet thing....and since then, they've had a unipolar world power structure to protect and support. The unipolar structure that they wanted post WW2, that they profitted off of immensely.
Also, if those ancient powers had nuclear weapons, aircraft carriers and aircraft that can drop soldiers just about anywhere on the planet within 24 hours they might have revaluated the cost/benefit ration of having all these global bases as well.
I'm still shocked that you don't see the value in boots on the ground.
The bases are a relic of the cold war and in large part aren't required the same way they were even 10 years ago. Maybe a argument could be made for Korea, but Japan and Germany, no.
Again, I don't believe that you quite understand the benefit the US receives in having the ability to change peoples minds around the world
Ah yes, those pesky plebs again. In all seriousness though, if the President works out a better deal with the Germans who are currently paying 1 billion of the 5 billion it costs the US have 50 thousand soldiers in Germany, I don't see the harm. Germany has a budget surplus of 25 billion euros, they can afford it. Yes, and with aircraft carriers and stealth planes and the near limitless potential of the drone program, bases become more and more obsolete.
Could easily backfire on the US. If Germany determines that they want to have more stability in their ability to promote peace in the region and they ramp up militarily, the US will lose a ton of soft power in the region. The US has it's voice heard everywhere on the planet simply because of their military power projection, and if it becomes less prevalent in various regions, so will the ability of the US to manage geopolitical situations.
So if America (Trump) decides it's cheaper to bring the troops home, don't worry, the American military dominance will continue on unabated. Don't lose any sleep over it.
If America creates power vacuums (even small, regional ones), they will get filled one way or another. Unipolar power projection exists for a reason.
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