Trump wants a win, nothing more, nothing less. He is not looking at anything in the future or how one action will affect another. He doesn't think ahead, he is only going with his gut.

This is a big problem with all who seek the White House or any political office really. They make promises and then when they are able to see all aspects and how it will not be as easy as once thought, they tend to back off or change tactics. Not Trump, he thinks it's all easy and just doubles down on stupid.

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TEAM HD
Each day is what you make of it so make it the best day possible.

Now those 3 bullets were spot on. Well said sir!

see point 3.

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https://lshtm.academia.edu/MikeCallaghan

http://howtobeswiss.blogspot.ch/

There may be bases that could handle some amount of Soldiers, tanks, and gear. I think it's optimistic to say that there is infrastructure in place that could handle the large number of ships, submarines, and Navy aircraft we have permanently deployed overseas.

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Slowguy

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To say Korea "may not want" us to up and leave is an enormous understatement.

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Slowguy

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Yes, we do, in that we want our partners to be more capable of fighting at a modern level because it builds capacity without requiring us to allocate more U.S. manpower, planes, systems, ships, etc to a fight. I'd much rather deal with a confrontation with China, for example, with a group of partners who can all contribute to a modern conflict than to try to do it alone, requiring us to draw assets away from other areas of the world to do so. I'd also rather achieve deterrent effect for something like PRC expansion in the South China Sea by showing them a group of partners who can push back, rather than allowing them to paint the U.S. a sole belligerent against their "legitimate" claims.

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Slowguy

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“When he says, ‘Thirty thousand American forces are there protecting Germany,’ that is a completely inaccurate explanation of what American forces in Germany are there for,” retired Lt. Gen. Ben Hodges III, said in an interview in the fall as Trump’s rhetoric on the issue heated up.


This. Anyone who thinks we have troops, ships, airplanes, etc stationed forward specifically to "protect" the countries where they're hosted possesses a woefully inadequate understanding of our defense posture.

We don't have troops in Germany for Germany's benefit. It's for ours. We don't have a fleet based in Japan for Japan's benefit. It's for ours.

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Slowguy

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I think in the case of Japan, Japan benefits from US bases in that it doesn't have to spend so much on defense. The US also benefits of course because it can use Japanese bases for security elsewhere to stop the spread of Chinese influence, and perhaps even Russian influence in the Northern parts. Take these bases away and tensions increase between China and Japan and some other countries. However, what these bases don't do is encourage countries like Japan and China from negotiating long term peace deals directly with each other. In the case of Okinawa, even if the Japanese government wanted to get rid of the US base there, the US would probably be quite reluctant to do so.

Most places we have permanent military bases benefit from our presence there. However, that's not why we have bases there. We have them there for our benefit. The benefit to Japan, Germany, etc is secondary.

Japan is in the top ten countries in the world for Defense spending. They also recently approved significant increases in defense spending. That's not bad considering their constitution forbids a traditional military and only allows a self defense force. They're already a solid military partner, and getting better. I'm not sure our presence is really having a huge depressive impact on their spending.

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Slowguy

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