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President Biden Halts U.S. Troop Cuts In Germany

Heyo

Veteran Member
Always a good idea to take advice, such a shame the previous president never bothered
Biden isn't taking advice, he simply knows he isn't so powerful as to command the military. Trump really thought he could and had to learn that the "deep state" isn't just something he made up - and that it is also not what he told everyone what it is.
The US military has longer term goals they don't let go just because a president says so. Evidence: it was 9 month ago that Trump ordered the retreat and not one soldier left Germany. Biden has just acknowledged the status quo.
 

metis

aged ecumenical anthropologist
Biden is working hard to reunite us with our traditional allies, which I believe is a very smart move. It's too bad that Trump was so "into" his BFF, Vladimir Putin, that he was willing to throw our allies under the bus on this and in some other areas as well.

IOW, it's great to see sanity return back into the White House.
 

Revoltingest

Pragmatic Libertarian
Premium Member
Biden isn't taking advice, he simply knows he isn't so powerful as to command the military. Trump really thought he could and had to learn that the "deep state" isn't just something he made up - and that it is also not what he told everyone what it is.
The US military has longer term goals they don't let go just because a president says so. Evidence: it was 9 month ago that Trump ordered the retreat and not one soldier left Germany. Biden has just acknowledged the status quo.
For that to be so, the military would require the power
of a 4th arm of government. I'm far from knowledgeable
on the matter, but constitutionally appears that the military
has no such authority. The President & Congress decide.
Ref....
Can Congress Constitutionally Restrict the President’s Troop Withdrawals?
 

Heyo

Veteran Member
The President & Congress decide.
Do they? Did they?
Trump ordered withdrawal of troops from Germany. Congress didn't oppose. Nothing happened for 9 month.
Is that "The President & Congress decide." or is that "the military decides"?
And after 9 month of not following an order, the military gets an OK from Biden to follow through with what the military had already decided.
 

Revoltingest

Pragmatic Libertarian
Premium Member
Do they? Did they?
Trump ordered withdrawal of troops from Germany. Congress didn't oppose. Nothing happened for 9 month.
Is that "The President & Congress decide." or is that "the military decides"?
And after 9 month of not following an order, the military gets an OK from Biden to follow through with what the military had already decided.
I don't know why things played out as they did.
But I don't see the military as being able to go
against the Prez & Congress.
You need someone better educated than I am.
 

Heyo

Veteran Member
I don't know why things played out as they did.
I do. It is what some refer as the "deep state". It's not only the military, it's the same in any bureaucracy: when the lower ranks don't like what the higher ups have decided, they find ways and excuses to sabotage an order.
 

Revoltingest

Pragmatic Libertarian
Premium Member
I do. It is what some refer as the "deep state". It's not only the military, it's the same in any bureaucracy: when the lower ranks don't like what the higher ups have decided, they find ways and excuses to sabotage an order.
I suspect something other than "deep state".
 

esmith

Veteran Member
From: https://www.cnbc.com/2020/07/29/us-is-bringing-6400-troops-home-from-germany.html

the U.S. will bring about 6,400 forces home and shift about 5,400 to other countries in Europe, U.S. defense officials said Wednesday, detailing a Pentagon plan that will cost billions of dollars and take years to complete.

The current EUCOM plan will reposition approximately 11,900 military personnel from Germany, from roughly 36,000 down to 24,000, in a manner that will strengthen NATO, enhance the deterrence of Russia, and meet the other principles I set forth,” Secretary of Defense Mark Esper told reporters, referring to U.S. European Command which oversees U.S. military mission on the continent.
“The Cold War practice of garrisoning large numbers of troops with their families on massive bases in places like Germany is now, in part, obsolete. Modern warfare is increasingly expeditionary and requires platforms with extended range, flexibility and endurance. While air bases and logistics hubs remain important, the Cold War-style garrisoning of troops makes less military and fiscal sense than it did in the 1970s,” O’Brien wrote in an op-ed published on June 21.

He added that the 25,000 U.S. troops slated to remain in Germany still represents a “strong” commitment to Germany by the United States.
 

Saint Frankenstein

Wanderer From Afar
Premium Member
President Biden has reversed the previous administration plans to reduce the number of U.S. military stationed in Germany until Sec Dev Lloyd Austin makes his recomendations.
Biden halts Trump-ordered US troops cuts in Germany
Speaking at the State Department on Thursday, Biden said the troop pullout would be halted until Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin does a review of America’s troop presence around the globe. Austin, he said, will ensure that “our military footprint is appropriately aligned with our foreign policy and national security priorities.”
Here we go. He's got to get us back on the neoliberal imperialist agenda that Trump moved us away from. Everyone should've seen this one coming. We'll probably be bombing some country or other before the year is out.
 

Shaul

Well-Known Member
Premium Member
It’s not like Biden and the Democrats were stationing troops in Washington D.C. to keep Americans out of the Capitol or something. No, wait...
:eek:
 

Heyo

Veteran Member
I have not.
I worked with agencies. When the software was implemented and tested by their specialists and it came to training staff, we didn't schedule it. We waited for a day when everyone was present and called them in. Scheduling was just too detrimental to the staffs health.
I see what you refer too, but I just don't think
it rises to the level of being able to override
the Prez & Congress.
It worked with the troop withdrawal. Do you really think US troops are unable to move a few thousand people from one European country to another or home to the US within 9 month? I don't think Hanlon's Razor applies here. Not even the US military can be that incompetent. They were simply unwilling and so it didn't happen.
 

esmith

Veteran Member
It worked with the troop withdrawal. Do you really think US troops are unable to move a few thousand people from one European country to another or home to the US within 9 month? I don't think Hanlon's Razor applies here. Not even the US military can be that incompetent. They were simply unwilling and so it didn't happen.

You do realize don't you that if you move military personnel, and their dependents from one country to another, excluding back to the U.S., it requires basically buliding a new base along with dependent housing and all the required infastructure.
Also if you are doing so it is accomplished by foreign companies and labor.
So I really don't think you thought your above comments through.
 

Heyo

Veteran Member
You do realize don't you that if you move military personnel, and their dependents from one country to another, excluding back to the U.S., it requires basically buliding a new base along with dependent housing and all the required infastructure.
Also if you are doing so it is accomplished by foreign companies and labor.
So I really don't think you thought your above comments through.
You did exclude moving troops back to the US to make your comment. I don't think you thought it through. Not one soldier left Germany for 9 month, that's a fact. And I don't think that is explainable by incompetence.
I don't know the nitty-gritty but it would be interesting to know how far other preparations got. Acquired land for the base, contracts with companies, cancelling contracts in Germany, etc. My bet is that any employee who achieved as much progress as the military would have been fired months ago.
 

Revoltingest

Pragmatic Libertarian
Premium Member
I worked with agencies. When the software was implemented and tested by their specialists and it came to training staff, we didn't schedule it. We waited for a day when everyone was present and called them in. Scheduling was just too detrimental to the staffs health.

It worked with the troop withdrawal. Do you really think US troops are unable to move a few thousand people from one European country to another or home to the US within 9 month? I don't think Hanlon's Razor applies here. Not even the US military can be that incompetent. They were simply unwilling and so it didn't happen.
Alas, I'm must looking at constitutional authority.
The military lacks it.
So I suspect lack of will on the part of Trump,
& difficulties with Congress.
 

metis

aged ecumenical anthropologist
It’s not like Biden and the Democrats were stationing troops in Washington D.C. to keep Americans out of the Capitol or something. No, wait...
:eek:
It's your fellow Trumpettes that did as such and cannot be trusted.
 

Kooky

Freedom from Sanity
Here we go. He's got to get us back on the neoliberal imperialist agenda that Trump moved us away from. Everyone should've seen this one coming. We'll probably be bombing some country or other before the year is out.
I think you are viewing US foreign policy during the Trump years with strongly rose tinted glasses at the very least. Certainly the material facts on the ground do not bear out such an assessment.

Drone strikes against civilians actually picked up dramatically even compared to the already trigger-happy Obama years, and the assassination of Iranian key military personnel certainly does not register to me as a turning point in US imperialism against Iran - quite the opposite, in fact.

If anything is remarkable about the Trump years, it's how little has materially changed in the last four years with regards to US military commitments despite very strongly worded and very widely distributed announcements to the contrary. Even the US leaving the Rojava state hanging out to dry isn't really a departure from its dubious and frequently frankly duplicitous relationship with Kurdish regimes.
 
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