[Disestablishmentarian]

>>Our once-strong allies <<

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When was Germany a STRONG ally?

They’ve been semi-pacifist since WWII.

Before that, on the other side.

Cold War face-off with USSR was primarily U.S. & U.K. protecting Germany.

[chimera]

Well, they did support a fair number of deterrent forces in the Cold War years. The Pershing IIs were at least a reasonable attempt to counter the Soviet SS20s. Sure, there were the usual rogue's gallery of protestors and peaceniks and eventually the missiles were removed when the Soviet state collapsed, but for awhile we had at least a modicum of credible deterrent in Western Europe. We also had any number of bases there that gave us a forward presence both in ground forces and air power.

While not being a huge military presence in the NATO lineup, W. Germany did provide us basing options which were valuable given the likely route that a Soviet land invasion might have taken. On balance, it was probably to our advantage to have those facilities available to us. Better that than nothing.