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Originally Posted by Catfish
^ @Skybird i agree regarding Trump (shock!) 
But this says nothing about T's generals. He sure had some field days firing even close supporters when they dared to point out that the Potus might be wrong..
On the other hand it is not a general's job to criticize the president openly, publicly, and after he has been fired. Maybe write memoirs, but some things are "bad style". Not that Trump himself did not lower the mark drastically.
A lot of military men left voluntarily though, since they did not want responsibility following Trump's views. And this is indeed a bad sign, even without outspoken critic. |
I do not know whether we really speak about the same events, however: when the first high ranking militaries stood up and spoke out against the plans by Biden's predecessor, they did so not early and not in a hurry. They were aware of the unusal step they took. To me this illustrates how serious and grave the concerns were that made them judging the issue worth to take this unusual step.
Again, the bases and established, proven, recently modernised infrastructure the American presence has established in Germany is of very high logistical and operational value for the US, for its global operations and namely the operation in Africa, ME. Its not any longer so much about the classical NATO versus Russia scenario, its about the global US network of military support lines and logistics and intel communication and remote control lines. The leg the US has in Germany, is a strogn and heavy one. Cutting it off really changes the global balance and setup - for the US, and to its disadvantage. I indeed think the US interest is Germany is outweighing the German interest of havign the US here. It is not indispensable, but could be relocated only at enormous costs in time and money.
Thats not to say the Germans are practically desinterested, no. But after Biden's predecessor, a sense of sobering has taken over, and the US is no longer blindly trusted and relied on in the future. What happend once in the US, can - and will, I say! - happen again. Easily. That the Germans are so eager to replace the Tornados with nuclear carrying capacity for the US nukes in Germany with any aircraft, not necessarily a future European model, but even buying a fighter in the US, is not so much because Germany wants to partly "own" US nukes,
but keeping the nukes in germany is a way to keep the Americans in Germany. So, even if relations have cooled down and the interests have been redefined: one cannot say the Germans have lost all interest alltogether and want the US out. By far not. One has just become more realistic a bit regardin future expectations.
Unfortunately not yet realistic enough to draw all consequences that are needed and beefing up defence and Bundeswehr capapilities. The BW today is just a shadow of past times only. And in parts it is, honestly said, a "Lachnummer" (a joke). This military force can deter no determined party from anything.