What are 53,000 US soldiers doing in Europe?

[MarkG]

i saw a graph in Time with the number of US soldiers abroad. apparently the US has 53,000 soldiers in Europe (plus 2,000 in Bosnia). what exactly are they doing there? protecting what from whom?

[BeBMan]

It's to annoy Putin

[snoopy369]

Many are probably in Germany, in our forward deployment bases or whatever - a lot of soldiers either heading to or coming back from iraq/afghanistan go there, from what i've been told. Fort Rammstein or something like that. A lot of hospital personnel and such. Also, probably air force personnel doing various things (like training German fighter pilots... my town near Holloman AFB when I grew up had a bunch of Germans there for a few years training on the Stealth and F-4). In the scheme of things, 53,000 isn't really all that many.

[Last Conformist]

According to a CFC kook, they're there to protect the rest of us from the German Panzerdivisionen that would otherwise be busy erecting the Fourth Reich.

[BeBMan]

[Pekka]

They're there to spend some of them dollars

[Jon Miller]

I don't know why. I think they should come home.

JM

[MarkG]

Originally posted by snoopy369
In the scheme of things, 53,000 isn't really all that many.

the total of troops abroad is 300k.
in iraq it's 150k
and there is a huge debate on sending "just" 20k more in iraq

and as we know from civ, having troops abroad create unhappiness back home

[Donegeal]

Originally posted by Pekka
They're there to spend some of them dollars

Well, that's what I primarily did when I was there.

[Thue]

Aren't they deployed there so that it is easier to move them to a real crisis?

Now, Germany is not really near any real crisis points, and it would be more logical if the soldiers were in eastern Europe, but I guess the US can't move them there for fear of provoking Russia.

That said, 50.000 troops have to cost some money, and given the US deficit I would probably withdraw them...

[Harovan]

Most combat troops are gone from Germany. As was mentioned above, the remaining assets are mostly infrastructural, like airfields and hospitals such as the Landstuhl Regional Medical Center, the biggest US military hospital outside the states, which serves as the nearest place for higher level medical service for injured soldiers from Iraq and Afghanistan.

[SlowwHand]

Originally posted by Jon Miller
I don't know why. I think they should come home.

JM

Jon, you need to get off this depressed trip you're on.

They're there for strategic deployment, with the blessings of the host country.

[Patroklos]

I doubt it costs any more than bases stateside. I sure we got some great deals on the realstate thanks to certain past events.

There are alot of places besides Germany where we are also well positioned to support our current deploments like the naval weapons station in Crete, naval station Rota, the naval air base in Sigonella, Sicily and Aviano air base in Italy.

Not to mention there are a ton of NATO staffs to be populated as well as liason officers everywhere in Europe.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Last Conformist
According to a CFC kook, they're there to protect the rest of us from the German Panzerdivisionen that would otherwise be busy erecting the Fourth Reich.

Exactly right. Gotta keep 'em down.

[DanS]

Re: What are 53,000 US soldiers doing in Europe?

Originally posted by MarkG
i saw a graph in Time with the number of US soldiers abroad. apparently the US has 53,000 soldiers in Europe (plus 2,000 in Bosnia). what exactly are they doing there? protecting what from whom?

Must not be doing much besides logistics and hospital work, considering that Rumsfeld wanted to move them home and into Central/Eastern Europe. Apparently, something stopped him from doing it totally.