President Donald Trump plans to pull about 20,000 U.S. troops from Europe, according to a leading Italian news agency.
A European diplomatic source told ANSA that Trump, who entered office on Monday for a second term, wants to reduce the American contingent in Europe by about 20 percent and plans to ask for a “financial contribution” for the maintenance of the remaining troops.
As a European, I say fine and sure.
But then we also withdraw from the Plaza accords.
Ever since China has winded down their US debt holdings, we have picked up the tab and the EU countries are now the largest foreign holder of treasuries.
Time to start selling.
And also, we only buy from European defense firms, no more spending on American defense.
what people don’t understand is that europe must say goodbye to america, things are turning.
we (europe) should start considering being more independent (from the USA) and maybe, just maybe, actually talking to our eastern neighbours.
our eastern neighbours
… you mean Ukraine, no?
No he means Putin and Lukashenko, the real vicitms of the war in Ukraine. Everyone knows that Zelensky is no angel.
Adding /s might have saved your comment from the downvotes.
Haha yeah I realized it. 🤷
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The Vietnam war was 50 years ago. I think there was quite a bit of criticism of the Iraqi invasion which while already a bit dated is a more recent comparison, no?
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True but it’s not direct military action so I was trying to find a more direct comparison.
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yes i was referring to the vietnam one because otherwise people say “muh duh it’s because 9/11 and they had to defend themselves”.
Well Vietnam is harder for most people to compare because most of us weren’t alive back then. So I don’t have a point of reference for how the media treated that conflict.
There’s always some kind of flimsy justification for war but we all know that Iraq and 9/11 were in no way related outside of the propaganda. Did people really take those things seriously in your community?
I’m in the US but even here many people rejected this reasoning, although you are right that the media and our political leadership were complicit. This was one thing that led to Obama’s election because he was one of only a few people in congress who opposed the war.
Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11. Anyone who says that is trying to revise history. Bush lied about Saddam having a WMD program to send us to Iraq. It’s the perfect example.
The US didn’t start the Vietnam War, maybe that’s why. They certainly exacerbated it and prevented it from being resolved, but it was just a civil war (kind of, Vietnam had just been divided into two countries, so I don’t know if it technically counts as a civil war still) at the beginning.
Nice suggestion. Let’s abandon our strongest ally who are in an identity chrisis for literal terrorists. Thanks, Lemmy.
Your “strongest ally” just removed 20% of its troops and wants to extort you for the other 80% in its obligations to said alliance
Wow!
Now do russia!
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But then we also withdraw from the Plaza accords.
The Plaza Accord ended in 1987. It was replaced with the Louvre Accord.
You are right. But I still see most people refer to the Plaza accords. I guess those are just more well known.
If there are no buyers for treasuries it’ll tank the dollar value and go a long way to remove it’s status as a reserve currency. Trump insist on rocking the boat that has been working for the US.
The US doesn’t have troops in Europe to benefit Europe though. They have troops in Europe to benefit the US.
Europe should be totally fine with them leaving. Get off their territory, give up all that power projection and hamstring yourself.
What a weird thing to threaten.
Trump is as dumb as a bucket of shit. That’s why he’s threatening to shoot himself in the foot.
He’d cut off his own hand if you could convince him that it voted for Biden.
That will depend on whether Trump knows Putin has something planned for Europe now that his lapdog is in the White House
What could Putin have that could threaten Europe when he has been unable to make inroads in Ukraine for years?
It’s depressing, but the US is the largest supporter of the Ukraine war effort. Europe has been able to rely on a US-backed NATO for a long time, and boy oh boy is trump making it clear what a bad idea that was. If the US stops supporting Ukraine, even just materially (i.e. we keep supplying intelligence and similar), the war will turn depressingly quickly. Hopefully they’ve been able to inflict enough damage on the russian economy that they’ll agree to a cease fire, but no european nations are equipped to fight the war of attrition Ukraine has turned into. Even with the US + Europe together, we’re barely able keep up with the ammunition demanded by the war.
If NATO and the US are no longer as much if a factor? He can project westward with less fear.
Well i argue that it’s more complicated than that … Europe really did profit tremendously from the relationship with the USA after WW2, but now … not so much anymore, i guess. If one looks at recent developments.
I would appreciate if we could maybe not spit in the face of our allies at every available opportunity.
😂 we elected the wrong party for that.
Nazis do that, and they’ve hijacked America for the time being.
wants to reduce the American contingent in Europe by about 20 percent and plans to ask for a “financial contribution” for the maintenance of the remaining troops.
Eat a dick, USA. Some partner. Maybe they’ll leave late like they showed up late for WWII after waffling about which side to join.
After the door hits them in the arse on their way out, be sure to repatriate all the land for those US bases. Make them pay 300% more for the land, after this term if they want to come back.
And use whatever money is saved to bolster one’s own national military. We can’t rely on the US any more for defence.
Fair enough. The less US military presence in Europe the better. We shouldn’t be reliant on the US for our security needs. European and NATO nations need to make sure they’re pulling their weight.
European and NATO nations need to make sure they’re pulling their weight.
Which is something that every President starting with Bill Clinton has been saying but the EU has had its fingers stuck in its ears while going “La la la I can’t year you!”. They learned nothing from the Yugoslav Wars, didn’t wake up for Crimea and it took extreme clanging of the alarm bells to get them to respond to Russo-Ukrainian War.
The EU has more people than the United States with an economy well capable of providing for common defense. It’s time for them to quit faffing about and get to it. The US was never supposed to be the eternal linchpin of NATO.
Obligatory: Donald Trump is a cancer.
There is a reason Russia does not want Ukraine to join the EU. Even the pretty bad state of the EU militaries ends up with a fighting force which is larger then Russias and has some pretty good tech. The issue is mostly organizing it all.
That’s easier said than done. We have too few people in the military and our equipment is old and sparse.
Sounds like military spending is gonna have to go up then!
Well gettchyo ass in gear and join the party for your own good
Given his threats towards Greenland i’d be happy to not have a hundred thousand US troops all over Europe to wreak havoc, if Trump decides to invade.
Also Europe has been a staging area for US invasions, wars and drone muders long enough.
You aren’t wrong but leaving out the bit about how much Europe has benefitted from the USA’s military machine is sorta disingenous.
How did the EU benefit from the US military machine?
The only argument i can see would be deterrence, however it also seemed to have weakened the EUs resolve to build its on independent force. The US destabilizations in West Asia have brought us Daesh and millions of refugees, which were exploited by the far right to rise to power in many EU countries, now working to destroy the EU from within and often favorable to Putin.
I don’t think it’s disingenuous. Omission of context in specific criticism doesn’t invalidate said criticism.
A comment doesn’t necessarily claim full disclosed assessment and weighing.
The comment didn’t look back. It mentioned recent happening and is looking forward.
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“financial contribution”
That doesn’t sound mafia-like at all.
Can’t wait to see our country join the bad guys in WW3. Exciting stuff
I see finally my stick stocks are gonna pay!
Maybe I should diversify into rocks as well.
Which country?
Well, it’s an article about trump pulling troops out of Europe, so pretty safe to conclude im from the U.S.
Well, Its an article about trump pulling troops out of Europe, so pretty safe to assume by “our country” you mean some country in Europe.
He means the US.
Y’ know, OUR country.
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Good riddance, we tried to get them out of Germany for decades. American soldiers off base are the worst. Drunk driving their oversized trucks, starting fights in village pubs, and generally being aggressive and obnoxious. And whenever something actually happens, they are picked up by on-base military police, get a slap on the wrist, and keep at it. Due to some bs agreement they are untouchable by German police, and only really end up in court if someone died.
Due to some bs agreement they are untouchable by German police, and only really end up in court of someone died.
Anna Sacoolas killed a kid with their car leaving a US airbase in the UK - she fucked off back to the US claiming diplomatic immunity so she couldn’t face charges. So they don’t even always end up in court.
Yep, it’s the only instance where they might, but even then it’s no guarantee. Closing the bases would be awesome for anyone but landlords in the areas who are charging extortionate rates to base personal rather than offering affordable housing to locals.
rather than offering affordable housing to locals
Let’s be honest, this wouldnt happen. Ideally the base would close and basically have an entirely new village built on it, flooding the local market with available properties that helps reduce the cost of housing - an abundance of supply over demand.
That said, the locals might have mixed feelings as US airmen will likely contribute to the local economy in some way.
That’s exactly what will happen, since we have laws in Germany against leaving homes unoccupied (with severe fines), so if the landlord can’t find a tenant willing to pay the extortionate rate, they have to lower the rate closer to market or risk paying triple of what they might be missing out on otherwise.
This is why we don’t allow foreign bases in France. Also, alliances are frail and cannot be depended on
and only really end up in court of someone died.
That this is a known thing that happens is really tragic.
I say pull them all, that would cripple their power projection towards Africa, Europe and the Middle East, and move forward with the creation of a EU Army.
Maybe. I think this supports Putin’s goals more than anything.
Something to keep an eye on is the AEGIS Ashore platforms in Poland and Romania. These are ICBM tracking and interception facilities, part of the US MDA’s Missile Defense System, and their specific purpose in being where they are is to defend Europe from Russian missiles. You can bet Putin would love to see them gone. If you see any news about reduced US military or MDA presence in those countries, you should be worried.
Yes, but only if the EU doesn’t immediately replace the vacuum with their own forces.
(Do any of the EU nations have nukes that aren’t owned by the US? Sadly such a deterrent is probably a requirement.)
(Do any of the EU nations have nukes that aren’t owned by the US? Sadly such a deterrent is probably a requirement.<
European Nations have sufficient Nukes as a deterrent. Well I reckon one nuke plus their warheads would incapacitate most cities. There are like 500-600 officially between UK and France.
We’ve seen war between nuclear nations. It’s not necessarily a deterrent from war. Russia is not using nukes against Ukraine either. It’s merely a deterrent from escalation to that degree.
We’ve seen war between nuclear nation
Ofcourse, having nukes is not a guarantee, but highly increases deterrence. Also, most wars we’ve seen are cold wars and or proxy wars though.
Ukraine had a huge nuclear arsenal (third in the world), which it then ceded to Russia in the 1994 Budapest memorandum Kyiv post.
I’ve added some information to my previous comment. Europe might be able to replace the conventional forces, but my concern would be the ICBM defense capabilities. The US MDA has a lot of infrastructure in Europe, and that system has been fantastically expensive to develop and required decades of research and engineering build, and I doubt it can be replaced in less than 20 years.
Good to know. That’s worrying indeed.
Germany is buying Arrow3, which is anti ICBM.
So having an interceptor is good, definitely the sites in Poland and Romania don’t really provide enough coverage. But, the interceptor is only one part of the defense. Before you can use it, you need an early-warning sensor which can spot the flare of a missile launch on the ground (or at sea) - most effectively done with a network of observation satellites. Then that sensor needs to hand off its data to a tracking radar system - preferably one that can track the missile from its boost phase through the atmosphere all the way up into its sub-orbital path. You will probably need several different radar systems at different locations with different angles and ranges to do this effectively (all actively sharing data with each other).
Modern ICBMs are nasty things with multiple warheads and also multiple decoy warheads, and they’re constantly dropping off empty fuel tanks and cowlings and other bits of hardware to shed weight during flight, so you need a highly sensitive radar to discriminate among the various debris and identify the real warhead(s). Once you’ve got that, you can track it for a bit to determine its trajectory and then you can feed that data to an interceptor system to hit it.
Also, explosions aren’t worth much in space so your typical interceptor uses a “kinetic warhead” which is basically just a solid chunk of metal (it’s a guided, rocket-powered bullet). You have to hit the target directly. If you miss by half a meter, you missed.
All of this identification, tracking, discrimination, targetting and intercepting needs to happen within the very few minutes of the ICBM’s flight path, preferably before the warheads separate and spread out. The point being, it’s a very difficult thing to actually accomplish and requires a lot of precision, and many different technologies working together in real-time, which is why I say that the MDA’s current system couldn’t be replaced in less than 20 years.
As an American, I could get on board for lower military spending, fewer people deployed, and Europe building up their own defense to make up the difference.
But I don’t trust for one second that Trump is doing this for anything good. Maybe Putin thinks Europe will pay less attention to him if they have to make up for lost American defenses.
Well, right now Putin is the only one Europe needs to be defended from, so they will still devote full attention. More, probably, since Europe will be forced to hasten the military policy renewal
It’s time for Europe to defend itself.
It has been high time to get rid of all and any US reliance when that orange fascist Muppet got elected the the first time.
Don’t let the door hit you on the way out you fucking loser
When will the US-made fighter jets stop working?
They’re planning on adding a paywall to their startup.
The pilot has to yell “I’M LOVIN’ IT” into the radio with sufficient enthusiasm otherwise the landing gear won’t come down.
I wonder that too. Hiding a kill switch deep within the F-35 is just the kind of shit our government would do. Maybe make the kill switch only able to be activated by something in the F-22, so it won’t ever be relevant unless things go really sideways.
You don’t need such a thing. Aviation is very strict about safety, and once your more thorough tasks come due, you’re reliant on the manufacturer anyways. If said manufacturer just says “sorry bud, can’t help you”, you gave a very expensive heap of unusable equipment
MMW: He’ll soon need every single fighter at home.
