The Great Retreat from Germany
5000 Troops on the Move
News out of the Pentagon is that the great retreat from Germany is beginning. Five thousand U.S. troops are being withdrawn at the request of a petulant president who can’t stand criticism of his disastrous war of choice with Iran. (Then again, maybe it wasn’t a war of choice, as it appears his commander-in-chief, Bibi Netanyahu, gave him none.)
Other countries to have annoyed Trump include Spain and Italy. In Trump’s words: “Italy has not been of any help to us and Spain has been horrible, absolutely horrible.”And we might cite Denmark here as well for refusing to hand over Greenland. Look for more U.S. troop withdrawals as “punishment.”
And wouldn’t that be a wonderful thing! The U.S. empire, to use an expression by my smarter wife today, simply has its hands in too many cookie jars. All those overseas bases (750 or more), all those overseas troop deployments, why, exactly, do we have all these? Perhaps during the height of the Cold War, an extensive network of overseas bases had a certain strategic logic in efforts to contain Soviet expansion, but ever since 1991, most of these bases have made little sense strategically. Much like Topsy, they just grew, and grew some more.
An uncontained U.S. empire features an increasingly unconstrained military-industrial complex flush with cash. This is not a good thing. The complex is drunk on money and power; future disasters are guaranteed.
Paradoxically, if America wants stronger, saner, national defense, we must make major cuts to the imperial war budget. Giving the empire yet more cash, yet more power, is a recipe for continual failure on the grandest of scales.
I don’t like the saying, but sometimes less really can be more. Less (as in lower) spending on the military will produce more (as in safer) conditions here in the U.S. and across the world.
My message to world leaders: If you have U.S. military bases in your country, please, please, insult and annoy Trump. It might be the most effective way to downsize the U.S. empire and to bring the troops home.
It would be a great thing if the U.S. accepted the emerging multi-polar world and shut down its global footprint of bases and commands, but it doesn't seem likely - as the U.S. has not renounced its intent to be the global hegemon.
NATO should have been disbanded after 1991 - but there were arms sales to be made to European "allies". NATO's move east has only increased tensions over the decades - and in spite of the pearl clutching over Russia 'invading' Europe (Europe has nothing Russia needs or wants), it was Russia that was threatened; that included live fire exercises in Poland 10 miles from its eastern border.
This withdrawal of 5,000 troops is approximately 15% of U.S. forces in Germany. I'll believe the U.S. is withdrawing from Germany when they close the Ramstein Air Base, Landstuhl Medical Center, the base at Baumholder and all the rest.
The U.S. is still planning the war with China - and that's not going to change, even if there are basing losses in the Mideast and Far East due to this idiocy with Iran. Military spending will increase to fund "super weapons" - like the Trump battleship.
My mind seems to be working even slower than normal today, so when I read "to use an expression by my smarter wife today" I immediately wondered what your dumber wife thought.
From my point of view Trump in this sense is doing something very positive, albeit long overdue. Eisenhower himself is reported to have said in 1951 that if "in 10 years, all American troops stationed in Europe for national defense purposes have not been returned to the United States, then this whole project will have failed".