StrategyPage reports (April 8th, 2004) that German diplomats are coming to America to convince Congress not to close our military bases in Germany. Good luck. We have long memories: watch what happens when you screw us over.
We should cut the size of our European forces down considerably, and as SP notes we can move our bases east (probably to the Czech Republic). Europe isn't likely to break out into open war again soon (*crosses fingers*), and our troops don't need to sit there twiddling their thumbs. In fact, we don't need so many soldiers stationed outside the United States at all anymore -- all we need are weapons caches scattered around the globe. We can fly troops in on a moment's notice (much more easily than we could circa WW2, when many of these bases were established), and it's cheaper to keep them at home as much as possible. The troops are happier, and training is much easier.
Just think about this!
American forces have been in Germany since 1944. It's now 2004. That's the longest Germany has gone without kicking French butt in almost 200 years. Obviously we've been the stabilizing force.
If we pull out, I figure it won't be long before German officers will be sipping wine and enjoying the attentions of French women in Paris AGAIN!
US base modernization contracts for IT & telecom have been nullified for a year already. This is a done deal. Bases in the FRG do not serve the needs of the US anymore and any economic pain the Germans may feel is not an argument for keeping our bases there.
I've been wondering when this would happen. I just hope it's not something that's dragged out indefinitely.
TML: Ah, good to hear more background. I'm also glad to hear it's a done deal.
I'm not sure we totally eliminate overseas deployments for all troops, although we could certainly use far fewer troops. There are questions of security of the prepossitioned materials, and maintance of same. An under-reported problem with much of what we kept in Western Europe was that it decayed in storage from lack of maintance, a non glamous and expensive budget line item.
So we would still need some boots on the ground, to maintan the material and keep it from growing legs.
But then it becomes a question of morale, for the troops who do have to deploy to the reduced bases. What about families, most can now bring their families with them,but that drives up costs and size of deployment. Do you make it a hardship posting. The deployments would need to be at least a year long to do any good, my dad use to say six month TDY's were pointless, you spent the first three months figuring out what you had to do and getting set to do it and the next three months getting ready to leave.
What does it matter to you what the army does. You do your own thing in your own little town and let the army do there thing. Be a good little gboy and mind your own business.