> The Pentagon said the withdrawal was expected to be completed over the next six to 12 months. Germany is home to around 35,000 active-duty U.S. military personnel, more than anywhere else in Europe.[1]
The articles mention withdrawing a BCT (which is ~4000 people) form Germany.
The US currently has 2 BCTs "fully" in Germany. The 2nd Cav Regiment (a Stryker unit.. so infantry mounted on 8x8 APCs) and an Armoured BCT on 9 month rotation (so tanks and IFVs).
There have been a bunch of studies indicating that the rotational ABCT costs more than even a truly forward deployed ABCT. My bet is that it's the ABCT that is going to get withdrawn. It's both the flashier unit, and likely has the highest impact on freeing up money. This also lines up with the withdrawal timelines... since the unit is rotational, they just need to wait for the end of rotation, and just... not send another. Much less disruption.
While the timing was obviously conjunction with current events, this draw down was likely to happen at some point in this term, even in absence of Iran things. Trump literally tried to do this at the end of his last term.
Maybe Germany will stop being the Trojan horse of the US inside the EU, at least for the defence.
Trump honestly have been great for EU sovereignty. It's a shame that his decisions caused that much suffering, which prevents me to truly be happy that he controls the US, but I do believe he is a net positive for the EU.
now Germany has a choice - to spend hundreds of billions for conventionally armed military to defend itself and still face risks of war or just a few billions to develop and produce nukes (using already existing Pu from the power plants) and have everlasting peace. Germans are rational people as i heard.
Switzerland benefits from being surrounded by well protected neighbors. They also try to be MAD without being mad, they will just blow up all the roads and retreat to the mountains if they are invaded.
How many military bases does the US have in Switzerland again?
Oh, the number is zero?
Well guess what, the US has a very prominent airbase and listening station in Ramstein and a bunch of other military installations there. Also: History.
To (memory-) quote Colbert a few months ago: Sure, let's have Germany have nukes to defend themselves. What could possibly go wrong!
If you know about the AfD, and their being officially considered "neo nazi" by the Office for the Protection of the Constitution (Verfassungsschutz) in some federal states and Trump all but officially endorsing that party ...
If this is the Trump Administration's "punishment" for "disloyalty", then we are in for a treat. Hopefully US forces can also be withdrawn from Japan, Iraq, Italy, Guam, and the other 180 locations where they are currently unnecessarily stationed.
Withdrawing 5k troops that are probably just rotational troops that ... go home without replenishment is different from actually shutting down bases.
Unless Germany denies the US Ramstein airbase and spying operations, you can safely bet they'll stay. Even if they withdraw everything that isn't required to just keep operating the airbase and listening posts, they'll at least keep those around for as long as they are able to actually use them.
I'm thinking it's meant to appear as a punishment for disloyalty, but withdrawing troops like this only hurts the US and NATO. As we've seen in the Middle East recently, the hosts don't get any kind of security guarantees.
Overall it meets the primary directive of this administration, which is to weaken the United States as a superpower and make way for Russia.
For the many commenters that can't be bothered to exercise their reading comprehension skills:
This is not reducing to pre-WWII levels, this is reducing down to 2022 levels (pre-Russia discovering their military can't win a war against Ukraine). It's mostly symbolic because Trump is a thin-skinned idiot and his staff wanted an easy way to appease him and make it look like something important was happening.
There are two broad reasons why the US has troops in Germany (and in Europe overall).
1. Because the Europeans wanted them there. NATO was a big security blanket, and certainly since the end of the cold war, up to say... 2014, America -wanted- a compliant Europe.
2. Because Europe is an amazing springboard into the middle east, and America just can't help but get itself involved in dropping bombs on the middle east.
1 ties into 2. A compliant Europe is less likely to raise objections to being used as a forward base for bombing Iraqis and Iranians. It's only in the last 10-15 years that the US realized that perhaps it was/had squandered it's lead to China, and dropped the ball (Europe at fault too) on properly containing (or addressing) Russia, and it would sure be nice if it could focus on the Pacific.
> The Pentagon said the withdrawal was expected to be completed over the next six to 12 months. Germany is home to around 35,000 active-duty U.S. military personnel, more than anywhere else in Europe.[1]
[1] https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/us-troops-germany-withdraw-nat...
The articles mention withdrawing a BCT (which is ~4000 people) form Germany.
The US currently has 2 BCTs "fully" in Germany. The 2nd Cav Regiment (a Stryker unit.. so infantry mounted on 8x8 APCs) and an Armoured BCT on 9 month rotation (so tanks and IFVs).
There have been a bunch of studies indicating that the rotational ABCT costs more than even a truly forward deployed ABCT. My bet is that it's the ABCT that is going to get withdrawn. It's both the flashier unit, and likely has the highest impact on freeing up money. This also lines up with the withdrawal timelines... since the unit is rotational, they just need to wait for the end of rotation, and just... not send another. Much less disruption.
While the timing was obviously conjunction with current events, this draw down was likely to happen at some point in this term, even in absence of Iran things. Trump literally tried to do this at the end of his last term.
From science, culture, economy to geopolitics - his stupid Highness is the Undertaker of the US Empire.
Otherwise there was absolutely nothing wrong neither anything seemed on the horizon for next couple of centuries more.
This may not be the end of the days of America the Superpower... but it may be the beginning of the end.
Not sure this really means anything, but we've been fairly transparent that we want to redirect attention and funding towards the pacific.
https://archive.ph/hFHiE
Maybe Germany will stop being the Trojan horse of the US inside the EU, at least for the defence.
Trump honestly have been great for EU sovereignty. It's a shame that his decisions caused that much suffering, which prevents me to truly be happy that he controls the US, but I do believe he is a net positive for the EU.
Good. It’s not 1945 anymore, we don’t need to keep occupying Germany.
now Germany has a choice - to spend hundreds of billions for conventionally armed military to defend itself and still face risks of war or just a few billions to develop and produce nukes (using already existing Pu from the power plants) and have everlasting peace. Germans are rational people as i heard.
[delayed]
They can learn a lot from the Swiss who spend a whole lot of less time and energy reacting daily to what the US thinks, says and does.
Switzerland benefits from being surrounded by well protected neighbors. They also try to be MAD without being mad, they will just blow up all the roads and retreat to the mountains if they are invaded.
How many military bases does the US have in Switzerland again?
Oh, the number is zero?
Well guess what, the US has a very prominent airbase and listening station in Ramstein and a bunch of other military installations there. Also: History.
To (memory-) quote Colbert a few months ago: Sure, let's have Germany have nukes to defend themselves. What could possibly go wrong!
If you know about the AfD, and their being officially considered "neo nazi" by the Office for the Protection of the Constitution (Verfassungsschutz) in some federal states and Trump all but officially endorsing that party ...
If this is the Trump Administration's "punishment" for "disloyalty", then we are in for a treat. Hopefully US forces can also be withdrawn from Japan, Iraq, Italy, Guam, and the other 180 locations where they are currently unnecessarily stationed.
Withdrawing 5k troops that are probably just rotational troops that ... go home without replenishment is different from actually shutting down bases.
Unless Germany denies the US Ramstein airbase and spying operations, you can safely bet they'll stay. Even if they withdraw everything that isn't required to just keep operating the airbase and listening posts, they'll at least keep those around for as long as they are able to actually use them.
I'm thinking it's meant to appear as a punishment for disloyalty, but withdrawing troops like this only hurts the US and NATO. As we've seen in the Middle East recently, the hosts don't get any kind of security guarantees.
Overall it meets the primary directive of this administration, which is to weaken the United States as a superpower and make way for Russia.
It does remove money from local economies. The drawdown of the British hurt my regional economy quite a bit.
For the many commenters that can't be bothered to exercise their reading comprehension skills:
This is not reducing to pre-WWII levels, this is reducing down to 2022 levels (pre-Russia discovering their military can't win a war against Ukraine). It's mostly symbolic because Trump is a thin-skinned idiot and his staff wanted an easy way to appease him and make it look like something important was happening.
Germany is silent on the Gaza genocide, and silent on the ethnic cleansing of Lebanon. Also Donald Trump doesn't have a fucking clue.
To get back to the point, I actually do not understand why there are any US soldiers here to begin with. Is it just posturing?
There are two broad reasons why the US has troops in Germany (and in Europe overall).
1. Because the Europeans wanted them there. NATO was a big security blanket, and certainly since the end of the cold war, up to say... 2014, America -wanted- a compliant Europe.
2. Because Europe is an amazing springboard into the middle east, and America just can't help but get itself involved in dropping bombs on the middle east.
1 ties into 2. A compliant Europe is less likely to raise objections to being used as a forward base for bombing Iraqis and Iranians. It's only in the last 10-15 years that the US realized that perhaps it was/had squandered it's lead to China, and dropped the ball (Europe at fault too) on properly containing (or addressing) Russia, and it would sure be nice if it could focus on the Pacific.
https://archive.ph/TvRui
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