US Military Bases Abroad

[DeletedUser]

Thought of posting this in the "Taxation" thread, but decided that this should be a topic all its own.

As you probably know, the US maintains a massive military presence around the world. Here's a map to illustrate its extent:

The Military has approximately 197,000 personnel stationed outside United States soil (not including those in Iraq and Afghanistan), spread over 737 bases. Most of these, as you can see, are located in Europe and East Asia, remnants of our Cold War military complex. As it has been two decades since the collapse of the Soviet Union, the majority of these are useless. Now, with the ever-worsening Federal budget crisis, the notion of curtailing our spending on these overseas bases is becoming more relevant.

To those interested, I suggest you read this document, a 2004 Congressional Budget Office report about this issue and some possible solutions to it: http://www.cbo.gov/doc.cfm?index=5415

Here's an excerpt:

There would be limited annual savings to offset the
large initial investment needed to restation U.S.
forces, unless U.S. presence overseas was greatly reduced.
In that case, annual savings could exceed
$1 billion, but the net up-front investment would be​

substantial—on the order of $7 billion.

Discuss

 

[DeletedUser]

Ehem, I find that your World Map is a bit off, since as far as I know, there is no US Military base in Ireland. Same with most of the countries in Europe.

If they decided to take the soldiers out of those countries, and demolish those bases, it would cost more than to just let them remain.

 

[DeletedUser]

I live in the UK very close to a US air base (I believe it's the biggest in europe).

It used to house B52s but now is almost devoid of staff.

There is a handful of skeleton personnal that keep the base ticking over but you've still got it if you ever need to use it.

Tactically it makes sense for the US to retain a presence as how else would you get to bully the world to your way of thinking.

 

[DeletedUser]

You used the one word I would describe the US Goverment/Military. Bully. They tend to show their strength to stop terrorists, and then wonder why some of the Middle Eastern dislike them.

Why would the US need bases in the UK and Europe.

 

[DeletedUser]

Why would the US need bases in the UK and Europe.

it has to do with faster response times. just like you wouldn't want to have to wait another 30 min for the ambulance to be sent to you from the hospital, in a life or death situation. that is why most ambulance drivers drive around so that if something does go wrong they are in the general facility.

 

[DeletedUser]

it has to do with faster response times. just like you wouldn't want to have to wait another 30 min for the ambulance to be sent to you from the hospital, in a life or death situation. that is why most ambulance drivers drive around so that if something does go wrong they are in the general facility.

Not quite.
If that was the case then bases would be fully manned all the time.
The base near me has no cabability to respond to anything at the moment due to its staffing level (and lack of aircraft stationed there) but resources can be re-allocated to it should the global situation suggest that they would be needed.
The re-deployment of troops alone can be used to frighten other countries.

 

[DeletedUser]

Ehem, I find that your World Map is a bit off, since as far as I know, there is no US Military base in Ireland. Same with most of the countries in Europe.

Indeed that map seems to overplay even the US's already powerful hand, since I cannot believe whatever the map says that the US have meaningful troop or base deployments in mainland China.

As for Eire, I suspect it things like this http://www.celticleague.net/news/eire-e10-million-bill-for-us-military-use-of-sionainn-shannon/ that make Eire show up.

 

[DeletedUser]

It is a little dishonest, as it's including troops deployed to protect U.S. embassies in foreign countries.

 

[DeletedUser]

Well, as seen in the link Nosaj provided, that may be why most of Europe is considered, US bases, since the US troops don't do full flights from the US to Afghanistan like from US to Eire to Germany to Turkey to Afghanistan.

 

[DeletedUser]

I used to live on a US Air base in Kaiserslaughtern, Germany. First off, they are closing bases over there, but they serve a very important purpose even today. The main reason they seem to be there is for is aircraft maintenance for the planes that go to iraq. They do flights from Germany strait to Afghanistan from many bases in Germany. It'd really hurt the war effort to close most of these bases, but some could be closed, as they are being closed right now.

 

[DeletedUser]

I think that everyone should just leave everyone else alone, including the U.S.

 

[DeletedUser]

I think that everyone should just leave everyone else alone, including the U.S.

How true. You should be handling the Middle East Peace Process.

 

[DeletedUser]

You're right, if the US never got involved all these things wouldn't of happened and all those people wouldn't of died.

 

[DeletedUser]

You're right, if the US never got involved all these things wouldn't of happened and all those people wouldn't of died.

right it would just be other people that would have died. the human race is a violent race and no matter who is in what country people are still going to die. if we look back in time to say WW2 in France about the year 1944 when the allied forces liberated France from Germany (you see where im going) knowing Germany there was already mass genocide of Jews and Catholics (I say Catholics because they were one of the biggest Jewish sympathizer groups out their at the time. they were also imprisoned/killed) going on. So if the American's were not their there would still be killing going on.

it is like killing 100,000 people over killing 1,000,000

 

[DeletedUser]

Hmm. Giz, I hope that's not your argument for U.S. involvement in Iraq.

 

[DeletedUser]

its scarey to think that

 

[DeletedUser]

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

And..

Ash, the worlds going to get scarier, and from what I saw in Campfire Stories, you're not even into the scary part Secondary School(Middle School,High School).

Actually, the British were the ones fighting the Germans mostly in WWII, with America fighting Japan. Also, if the Nazi's won WWII they wouldn't of been able to take over all of Europe would they? They'd need more than just Germany & Austria. Also, you're all forgetting Canada helped the British with supplies. Australia helped Britain also.

If the US never got involved with Iraq, Iran & the such, would we have the Al Khaidh a group that is focused on hating the US? Would we have the huge rifts in the Middle East & Asia?

 

[DeletedUser22575]

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

And..

Ash, the worlds going to get scarier, and from what I saw in Campfire Stories, you're not even into the scary part Secondary School(Middle School,High School).

Actually, the British were the ones fighting the Germans mostly in WWII, with America fighting Japan. Also, if the Nazi's won WWII they wouldn't of been able to take over all of Europe would they? They'd need more than just Germany & Austria. Also, you're all forgetting Canada helped the British with supplies. Australia helped Britain also.

If the US never got involved with Iraq, Iran & the such, would we have the Al Khaidh a group that is focused on hating the US? Would we have the huge rifts in the Middle East & Asia?

Time for you to go reread your WWII history and double check the US involvement with fighting the Germans.

 

[DeletedUser]

You're right, if the US never got involved all these things wouldn't of happened and all those people wouldn't of died.

And Europe would be a totalitarian state under either the Nazi's or the Communists.

Life and the world just isn't so black and white, it's full of shades of grey.

 

[DeletedUser]

Actually, the British were the ones fighting the Germans mostly in WWII, with America fighting Japan. Also, if the Nazi's won WWII they wouldn't of been able to take over all of Europe would they? They'd need more than just Germany & Austria. Also, you're all forgetting Canada helped the British with supplies. Australia helped Britain also.

Wow.

So... errr the British fought both the Germans and the Japanese... as did the US.

Brtiain bankrupted itself fighting the war, and yes, without the US, the Germans would have been able to dominate Europe, apart from Eire, Switzerland and GB they had anyway.

The Germans had plans to invade Eire and the UK and I'm sure without the help from the US would have done so.

The only reason Europe has much of anything today is thanks in large part to Marshal plan, an extremely generous aid package from the US to Europe that literally rebuilt a devastated Europe.

Man, its just too naive and simple to say it was the British and the empire that did this and the US that did the other. It was called a world war for a reason and many nations and peoples gave and sacrificed much. Had China not fought the way it did whose to say how that would have effected the outcome of the war.

But if you want a quick and easy (if somewhat simple) view of which nations did what in later half of the European war, just look at which nations and the proportion of troops each provided for the Normandy landings, and if you really want to be stunned, do some research and estimate what proportion of all the supplies and equipments used for landings were manufacturered by which nations.