StrategyPage has an interesting post about the cost of stationing American troops overseas (dateline April 14, 2005).
Stationing American forces overseas has not always been as large a financial burden on the United States that it appeared to be. As the economies in West Germany and Japan recovered after World War II, they reached a point where the United States demanded, and got, payments from those countries to cover part of the expense of keeping American troops there. Since then, Japan and Germany have paid over a hundred billion dollars in such payments, and since 1991, even South Korea has made similar payments. South Korea’s payments are now $661 million a year, but are being cut 8.9 percent to reflect the withdrawal of some American troops.
They also point out that the biggest costs are travel and the economic loss of having the soldiers spend their pay in another country. Additionally, if Iraq decides to keep American troops around long-term, we should expect them to pick up part of the tab.
Here's something I've never been able to understand, and maybe I'm just mistaken.
Supposedly there are thousands and thousands of troops stationed overseas, all over the globe.
Why draw from National Guard and reserves to put them directly into combat/peacekeeping in Iraq, when you have all these regular military ready and waiting in other countries?
Why not move some of them into the Iraqi theatre and rotate the Guardsmen and reserves into the foreign posts? That way those that did not choose that life won't be put in direct harm's way, and those that did can be? Plus there would be a smaller training curve and rotation could be a lot easier to get the Guardsmen home...
I know there are a number of exceptions to this, but I've never heard it mentioned...