While US Army officials insist no specific decision has been made on any new deployments, officials familiar with the situation say that the Army has begun seeking sites for new bases in Europe, with a pair of locations in Northern Germany having already been scouted.
It is interesting that Germany is being scouted, since most recent US deployments into Europe have been further east, with an eye toward getting large numbers of troops along the Russian border. US troops have deployed to Poland and the Baltic states.
It’s also surprising because it was only a few years ago that the US was openly trying to reduce the number of troops deployed to Europe as a money-saving measure, and as a part of a planned “Asian pivot” that would get more US troops deployed around the Pacific rim.
Of course, this is par for the course for the Pentagon, where paying for a new deployment by cutting out an old one often ends with the US doing both, and Congress cheerfully footing the bill irrespective of the justification for the deployments, or lack thereof.
“…and Congress cheerfully footing the bill irrespective of the justification for the deployments, or lack thereof.”
And therein lies the heart of the problem – except it isn’t Congress who foots the bill.
Given that the USG pulled US troops out of Germany
not very long ago, one might think that some of those abandoned facilities could be updated / upgraded at reasonable expense, but that wouldn’t let the US corporate crony capitalists have their wicked way with US taxpayer funds.
I know from direct experience that several of the closed US [later German] barracks which the Germans kept in good condition are used to house refugees.
How long after the end of WWII must Germany suffer US occupation?
If it was good to breakup the Balkans it should have been better to keep Germany separated
Too bad that the USA has infected most of the globe with bases, that Europe certainly needs no more and the Germans do not want what they have OR the nukes the USA kindly parks there. The USA complains, yet keeps interfering to make conflict in Europe much more likely. GO HOME YANKS
I couldn’t agree with you more. Donald Trump, both in his campaign speeches and his Inaugural speech, pledged to close at least most of America’s overseas bases and bring the troops home. These bases were first expanded under Bush II and grew to their present number under Obama.
Trump spoke about reducing America’s debt in a number of speeches he’s made, and here’s a huge opportunity waiting for him to take. All of these unnecessary overseas bases cost a great deal of money and contribute to most of the country’s debt. America’s crumbling infrastructure’s still in dire need of repairing, which will be costly, and Trump cannot keep those overseas bases open and upgrade the military’s hardware and weapons, as well as spend on repairing the crumbling infrastructure, and not affect the debt. A vast majority of the countries hosting these bases don’t want them on their soil .. Therefore, it’s long time they were closed down.
A pattern is developing which goes a long way to explain Trump policies. Everything the Obama administration did must be erased forever if not from the history books then from the knowledge of the current nation. Obamacare must go. The Iran agreement [worst agreement ever negotiated] must go. NAFTA [another worst agreement] must go or be renegotiated. Obama’s immigration policy [another so-called disaster] must go. All fine-tuning of our social network must go. No aircraft carrier or airport may be named “Obama”. Mosul and Raqqa will be taken by Trump forces.