American troops in Europe

[Paul Hanson]

Newsflash: We don't care about baseball over here.

[Pekka]

But it's not all bad, I mean if I were soldier in the US army, I'd like to station in foreign countries, have some experiences through that.

[Apocalypse]

Originally posted by Paul Hanson
Newsflash: We don't care about baseball over here.

I'm just being sarcastic. The best little leaguers in Europe are sons of American soldiers stationed there. In some ME countries like Saudi Arabia, all the players are Americans. It is really silly to have Americans playing Americans in internation competitions.

[Paul Hanson]

I know you were. I was only joking.

[GePap]

The Euroipeans do have the forces to portect themselves: after all, Germany, france, Britian, and italy all have armies of 250,000 men plus. Who's going to invade them? The Martians?

As has been said, the US keeps troops in Europe to stay relevant in Europe, as was said before.

Our complaint is that the Europeans don't spend enough on new methods of force projection. After all, the germans may have a big army, but it would have to drive to the ME if it had to, and that's sort of a difficult task. At the same time, the EU isn't very interested currently in having the ability to send troops anywhere in the world and have long raneg strike capabilities. I guess they got sick of Empire already, though one can hardly blame them.

[The Andy-Man]

The USA needs an army in europe so it dosn't become militarily independant. The US has already lost its economic control, if it looses its military influence then it becomes a meaningless power in Europe, and in the long run Europeans might start to protect their own shipping, and even control it, which would damage US trade, anbd again, other peoples dependancy on their navy. Its all about keeping some sort of sphere of influence in the most important region in the world. And don't forget China is rising to dominate the Pacific Rim, so if the US is out of Europe, out of the Pacific, it has more or less lost all influence outside of the America's.

[The Andy-Man]

I frgot to mention:
The European countries don't want the USA out becuase Britian has the biggest navy in Europe, so they would naturaly fill the naval vacuum and more or less control mediterranian shipping again a la 19th C, this would cause internal friction and in the long run military conflict (possibly). But this is looking far byond the US withdrawal.

[Sandman]

I agree wholeheartly with GePap.

[Saint Marcus]

Gepap is fast becoming my favorite poster on poly.

[chequita guevara]

We keep our people there as a reminder who is boss. Hegemony means never having to say you're sorry.

[MichaeltheGreat]

It is faster to deploy troops that are already forward based.

For example, in the First Gulf War (not sure what we're going to call the second ), deployment of US VII Corps from Europe to Saudi Arabia took about 30-45 days less than deployment from CONUS would have taken, and there's a direct commercial benefit in reducing the disruption of domestic rail and port traffic.

[Odin]

It is to attract inlistment, more people will join the service if you say they get to see Paris. Also, I think they have a secret mission of capturing people Europeans won't send back to the US to be executed.

[Ned]

Originally posted by Saint Marcus
we don't want you here either flash. get the hell out.

I assume we could get along quite well with a scattering of air and naval bases. Beyond that, I see no need at all for maintaining a large presence in Europe. So, I agree, withdraw.

[Odin]

I just thougt of another reason, to subversivly mess up communist parties in Europe.

[TheStinger]

Ge-Pap Briatin has a regular army of around 100,000 we can muster a whole division for any possible war on Iraq. Without US logistaical help Europe couldn't do much. Gernmany, France and Italy all have large paper armies which can't do anything except dig in and wait for US re-inforcements. In other words the cold war is over but Europe hasn't changed is stratergy.