War isn’t expensive, by comparison to what we’ve done after wars. We could kill nutcases and lunatics on the cheap. It is all this “enforced peace” that costs money.
Consider the amount of money we spent crushing the Nazis vs. the amount of money we’ve spent on maintaining a force structure in Germany since 1948.
We should withdraw our troops from Europe post-haste. We’ve been doing nothing more or less than subsidizing Europe. They’ve had the luxury of spending their tax monies on all sorts of social welfare, because they have not had to pay for their own defense. If we withdraw and pull that money back home, the EU won’t be quite so high-handed with us - because they’ll have to make some hard choices.
The Europeans don’t like us. So let’s leave. The South Koreans don’t like us. So let’s leave.
We should give all of these sad-sack whiners about US ‘hegemony’ what they want: an isolationist US. And when they get stepped on, our response should be “Golly. That looks like it hurt. Put some ice on it.”
“We should withdraw our troops from Europe post-haste. We’ve been doing nothing more or less than subsidizing Europe. They’ve had the luxury of spending their tax monies on all sorts of social welfare, because they have not had to pay for their own defense. If we withdraw and pull that money back home, the EU won’t be quite so high-handed with us - because they’ll have to make some hard choices.”
Excellent point, and one I’ve pointed out to my Dutch brother-in-law for some time. It’s easy to condemn others for military action when you haven’t a clue about defense.
The only thing that would concern me is the possibility of war breaking out eventually....perhaps the formation of the EU would prevent this....or would the centralized government actually make things worse if they were left to their own defense? IDK....
I’ve thought this for a long time. We have too many troops in too many countries and it makes no sense to keep them there, especially in the countries that are perfectly capable of defending themselves.