[XJarhead]

Recent history has only reinforced how important that relationship is to the United States. NATO is the only alliance capable of sharing some of the global military burdens that have now overstretched America's ground forces.

And exactly how many troops have the Germans committed to NATO operations outside the borders of NATO? As far as I can tell, the Polish contribute far more, and so it would appear to be more important to keep better relations with them than with the Germans.

[Atlantic Friend]

That's partly because the German constitution forbade the sending of troops to exterior theaters until 1999 (IIRC), partly because of the bad blood accumulated during WW2, and partly because the German troops were slated for first-line defense against the Soviet Bloc. Michael81Dus could be more specific about it.