Donald Trump Pulling US Troops From Europe in Blow to NATO Allies: Report

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Your "strongest ally" just removed 20% of its troops and wants to extort you for the other 80% in its obligations to said alliance

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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.

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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.

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I wonder. Maybe Putin and Trump had a backroom deal that if US pulls out of Europe, then Putin will go on the negotiating table to end the war in Ukraine, and Trump is using the argument of "free riding Europeans" as convenient pretext. Trump is showing to Putin that the West is de-escalating by withdrawing American troops. After all, the Russian president is complaining of NATO encroachment. American troop withdrawal is indeed evidence for de-escalation.

Then at the same time, Trump wants to pivot against China. The US troops in Europe could be redeployed to Asia.

This is simply my speculation and there could be more to this than we would know publicly.

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also a good reason to make such a fuss about greenland:

well if they won't let us protect them, perhaps we should just leave NATO...

smoke mirrors and bullshit, it's all they have

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Trump is not as dumb as people make him out to be (he would not remain a billionaire if he's that dumb), I reckon he's got some sort of plan (or rather a concept of a plan). His wildcard, unpredictable foreign policy harkens back to Gaullism, when Charles De Gaulle pulled France out of NATO, because he is simply annoyed by the Anglos, and France is being France who loves being maverick pursuing its own independent interest. In the end, France pulling out of NATO was a nothingburger, because France has still been a nominal military ally of the West throughout and France eventually returned to NATO. That being said, Trump could be doing something similar and maybe he doesn't even realise it. Trump's current wildcard foreign policy is still driven by nationalist self-interests, which is follows oddly similar pattern to De Gaulle's.

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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 of someone died.

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and only really end up in court of someone died.

That this is a known thing that happens is really tragic.

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maybe he doesn’t even realise it.

sure buddy. 4d chess. from a man who suggested bright lights and bleach for covid.

doubt.

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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

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I don't want to give too much credit to Trump, but there is realpolitik reason for him wanting to take Greenland and retaking the Panama Canal. For him, it is securing perceived gap in American national security, but he's doing it in old school imperialist way as if there's no international law (think of Putin's reason for invading Ukraine because he thinks the latter is the soft underbelly from which to attack Russia, even though before the invasion everyone thought it would be stupid of Putin to invade a country that historically hated Kremlin).

Anyhow, as Sun Tzu said: never underestimate the opponent. There's a reason Trump is a billionaire and the leader of the most powerful country in the world, while both of us are not any of those. People can be dumb, but not that dumb. People have also

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Good and clear out your airbases overs here too. And take your shit cars with you.

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but there is realpolitik reason for him wanting to take Greenland and retaking the Panama Canal.

and it makes sense if you're a twelve year old, or, if you want to destroy NATO and our country's other alliances.

He's wrecking the fucking place, you dolt.

Cancelling NIH funding, leaving the WHO, jerking around our allies with bullshit... open your damned eyes.

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can this happen in asia too please

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Look, learn the basics of realpolitik, then come back. I'm not defending Trump, I'm explaining why he does what he does. A lot of people don't understand what dry analysis is especially in realpolitik. I linked an article from an esteemed site explaining Trump's motivation so that's a start.

Is what Trump doing stupid? Sure. But for him it's not with respect to his nativist, nationalistic agenda. He's going back to old school imperialism and unilateralism of a more powerful imperialistic nation state. People said the same of Hitler as being stupid, but no one can't doubt he had been influential. In spite of losing the attempted coup, Hitler had been able to use the political system to gain power after all, and enact his own vision of ultranationalism. It's the same with Trump. And again, Trump is the one in charge, not you nor I, so he's not dumb in his own right. Keep underestimating the opponent, and you're the one who will actually lose. A lot of people underestimated Hitler and his partner Mussolini and look what happened.

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That would be nice. Let's see if it actually happens.

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What could Putin have that could threaten Europe when he has been unable to make inroads in Ukraine for years?

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MMW: He'll soon need every single fighter at home.

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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.

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Dude Realpolitik is not about ignoring effects getting rid of all your allies has, making yourself a pariah. That's not dry analysis it is, as you correctly point out, stupidity.

If you had invoked geopolitical "realism" (as they call it) you would have a point: Because that stuff is inherently stupid. But it's also not Realpolitik.

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Donald Trump Pulling US Troops From Europe in Blow to NATO Allies: Report