Posted on 02/25/2023 1:04:06 AM PST by Zhang Fei
Interestingly, the “US occupation” was reduced massively post-1991, and in all that time it was the “occupied” asking for more US troops.
You have a precisely opposite view of what actually transpired.
Yes, invasions of the past were bad and wrong. But Russia alone is to blame now -its stupidity and arrogance in invading Ukraine have earned it the global equivalent of a Darwin Award.
Not genocide here, but suicide.
Glimpse into the future PING!
That might explain why these countries wanted to join NATO. It doesn’t explain the more important question from my perspective as an American:
Why did the United States want them to join?
If you haven’t figured this out by now, the U.S. never does these things for altruistic reasons. We didn’t allow Poland (for example) to join NATO because we want to protect them. We added them to NATO to control them.
Unlike the Warsaw Pact or the Soviet Union, no nation is forced to join or stay in NATO at gunpoint.
Most European countries have little or no leverage in these matters simply because they are smaller than some U.S. states. France is the lone exception to this. They’ve never seen themselves as a full-fledged member of NATO — which is a luxury they could afford because they are a nuclear power themselves.
I would ask one simple question: How many U.S. military installations are there in Europe today, compared to 1990?
… it was the “occupied” asking for more US troops.
Did they want them there for protection, or to support their economies — sort of like American tourists in fatigues?
You mean like Hungary in 1956, or East Germany in 1961, or Czechoslovakia in 1968, or Poland in 1982 when their hopes for freedom were brutally crushed?
Putin’s Russia has been around for 30yrs, some major imperialism by Russia in that time frame! S/
Is he self reflecting for the US?
Wrong. I got to Europe in 1991 precisely to CLOSE most of those bases. I did a presentation at ESC/AFIC Headquarters on all the places we vacated in 1995. The US military presence in Europe went from 3000K in 1990 to 75K when I left in 1997.
Many of those places were emptied due to Desert Shield, with multi-divisions and wings went to Saudi Arabia never to return to Europe after 1991.
I went to practically every place that had an Air Force Intelligence presence to help shut it down (my job was classified circuit management). This included MANY Army bases and kasernes.
The planning to close them were all based on the Soviet’s demise but the actual evacuation in the 1990s took a couple of years to implement.
I spent so many TDYs in all over the UK, Berlin, all over Germany, Italy, Spain, Greece, Turkey and the Netherlands—I can converse (simple) in each language. I can order beer, wine and spirits easily!
The bulk of those units sent to the Gulf returned to the US or were disbanded, as were many units in Europe and the US throughout the 1990s.
In the end only a small fraction of the US forces permanently stationed in Europe in the last years of the Cold War remained by the 2010s. I would count noses between, say, 1991 and 2016, or 1989 and 2016 if you like.
The demand for troops mainly came from the Eastern Euros, such as the Poles. They have wanted and been calling for more US units permanently stationed for decades.
Don’t we currently have about 30,000 in Italy?
“In 1992 alone, about 70,000 Soldiers redeployed to the U.S. with about 90,000 family members. The command shrank from 213,000 Soldiers in 1990 to 122,000 in 1992. From 858 installations in 1990, U.S. Army Europe went down to only 415 in 1993 with more scheduled to close in the years ahead.”
Just a start. You can fill out the rest of the story.
I don’t know. You could research it.
I don’t know. You could research it.
I think I did
Precisely. People at that time had it in living memory what russia’s “brotherly assistance” looks like. Therefore any opportunity to join a military alliance with the civilized West was snapped up as soon as it was offered.
Then the Empire expanded into the British Isles, Judea, Central Europe (Dalmatia & Marcomanni campaigns, etc.), finished going across North Africa, Mesopotamia (200 years or so of wars with various incarnations of the Persians). Also, archeologists are showing Roman influence and control extended far beyond the Rhine. Rome expanded until it couldn’t, couldn’t for military, logistics, communication, cost, etc. reasons. Laters Emperors acknowledged that fact by building walls (Hadrian, Antonius Pius, etc.) and reorganizing the army into a more defensive posture. (Which was also thought too decrease the possibility of commanders organizing and challenging the central government. It had some effect.)
“This BS is repeated often.”
Actually it is repeated daily and incessantly. Propaganda for breakfast. Propaganda for lunch. Propaganda for dinner.
Russia and Putin are the new boogie man now that the COVID hoax is over.
Got to keep the idiots obsessed about something.
Nor have we. But "the Russians" is a generalization. Russia isn't anywhere near as united and determined as the Germans or the Japanese were.
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