Posted on 12/03/2019 4:28:23 PM PST by Olog-hai
It can’t be as simple as that though, right?
Leaving NATO?
Does the congress have to vote, etc? I have no idea actually, which is bad.
I assume NATO still serves some purpose for us.
Ramstein/Landstuhl are key support/transit points for US units in the Middle East as well as in Eastern Europe. The US Army Hospital at Landstuhl has treated hundreds of US casualties from Iraq and Afghanistan, providing the troops with a level of care equal to state side military hospitals, but many life saving hours closer than flying the injured troops to the East Coast. And Ramstein is the primary air base where those injured troops are flown into from the combat zone for treatment and then evacuated back to the States.
Thus, I don’t consider Ramstein/Landstuhl being only “symbolic” to the Germans. Also, Rhine-Main AFB is gone as a US facility, it is part of the greater Frankfurt airport.
You mean they have closed Ramstein and Spangdahlem?
LANDSTUHL
The problems aren’t Muslims or Russia. It is about trade above all.
Here on board is a discussion about that China is about to stop importing US microchips because they got theirs.
People are seriously suggesting to put pressure on other countries to prevent their trade with China as one point and another point ‘US has a buying power above all’.
How silly is that?
The United States is now the most powerful country but it has fewer and fewer to offer to the rest of the World except US dollar and military power.
And let’s think for one moment what is behind it?
Behind US dollar is enormous debt and not that much else.
What US has to trade with? It is exporting corn and soybeans and scrap metal to China. US automakers flopped abroad because even Romania makes better cars nowadays. Boeing is working hard to follow. Most of traditional US brands are making stuff abroad with all the technical data in possession of immediate manufacturers.
What’s behind US dollar? It seems more like arrogance and a ‘buying power’ of a credit card maxed out at $23 trillion.
It would crash and burn the moment the rest would stop tolerate arrogance.
“” “” They wish this because the 50% of Eastern Germany is still communist. They want the old days of the Iron Curtain to return.”” “”
Not really. More like in reverse. For Germany trading with Russia is a capitalist thing. With US it is mostly politics.
Go right ahead and take less from the U.S. I won’t stop you.
Works for me! Take our military out of Germany.
She says Germany will get up to the required 2% of GDP to NATO by 2030..........What? They have been required to pay that rate for years!
Their military is an absolute joke. One battalion of Marines could wipe out their entire army.
That’s right. They are not a threat to anyone, including the Muslim invaders. Germans won’t even protect their women from the animals.
Yep. Germany will become a new Caliphate for Muslims.
“According to the poll, 55% of Germans believe that European members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) should protect themselves from an attack without US help.”
I’m all for that. But I rather doubt that the German armedf forces in their present condition could keep a stray Russian cow from strolling over the border.
“Is Germany a threat militarily or financially?”
I suppose that the diplomats who worry about this stuff would say “yes” to the latter and “given enough time” to the former. But the German electorate doesn’t seem to want to foot any bills for defense.
What’s behind US dollar? It seems more like arrogance and a ‘buying power’ of a credit card maxed out at $23 trillion.
It would crash and burn the moment the rest would stop tolerate arrogance.
1. The humongous size of the Free Sh!t Army. If you cut them off, the cities (& suburbs) will burn.
2. The Fed can now seemingly create unlimited $$ out of think air while keeping inflation low and interest rates near zero. This makes it possible for debt to rise to infinity.
3. Everyone does it. All Western countries (except maybe Germany) have a huge debt problem and addiction. As that goes, Japan is worse than us. China is probably pretty bad too, but masks it.
At some point, the chickens may come home to roost and the System may reset. That will be very messy and the Powers-that-Be will do everything they can to delay that Day of Reckoning. I’m not that young anymore so I could well die before that Day arrives.
The other thing is that solving the Debt problem would require both long term thinking, sacrifice (on everyone’s part) and true bipartisanship. In the current environment, there is no desire for ANY of that. So just expect more bandaids whenever the wound beings to bleed.
That gravy train was alive and well for so long because there was no alternative.
American economy was apolitical and there was no alternative to US dollar.
Today you have an EU and China both independently near peers to US economically and US has become extremely political abusing different forms of sanctions.
That makes US not that much a safe heaven economically it was for a century.
It is one thing to hit Libya or Iran or even Russia with sanctions but then the same policies applied to China and Germany.
Everyone pays attention.
Germany isn’t going to attack anybody. They won’t even protect their women from the Muslim invasion.
No, Ramstein and Spangdahlem air bases are still open as US facilities, although I think Ramstein may be a joint USAF/RAF/Luftwaffe air base. I’m not sure on that, I just remember seeing an article that showed a picture labeled the “British and German co-commanders of Ramstein” at a WW2 memorial function.
Talked to a neighbor who was a major in the Army. He said that as of now, he thought that there were some 20 US military bases left in Germany. Said he could find out for sure, but...
Anyway, asked me why I wanted to know and I told him. He agreed with our thoughts since the cold war is over, and being that Belarus and Ukraine are not part of the old Soviet government, that we should move closer to the front lines, so to say.
He said, in his opinion, that Germany has never been our friend, even after we re-built them after WW2. Unlike Japan, who has become one of our closest allies in the Pacific.
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