We should've done this twenty years ago, but it's still nice to see some common-sense changes being made. While we're at it we should close down our bases in Japan just for starters.

Quote:The Pentagon announced a plan on Thursday to save a half-billion dollars annually in a major scaling back of the U.S. military presence in Europe — including a withdrawal from an airbase in the U.K. and handing back 14 other sites to NATO allies.

It also said that its presence at one British airbase would be beefed up as part of a planned deployment of the F-35 fighter aircraft.

The U.S. has more than 60,000 troops stationed primarily in Britain, Germany and Italy. The changes would affect mainly the Army and Air Force.

http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2015...pean-sites

My dad was stationed at RAF Mildenhall back in the late 80s. We actually lived in base housing at RAF Lakenheath which is only 10 minutes away.

It makes a lot of sense (economically speaking) for us to close these bases. However, I must admit that it is a bit sad for me to see bases that I grew up on go away (a few other bases we lived on have already shut down the past 20 years or so).

(01-09-2015 11:02 AM)Fo Shizzle Wrote:  

Yep. A move that is long overdue. Frankly, they should be deployed along the southern border to shut off the spigot for illegals entering the country.

Since the Reagan/Thatcher defeat of soviet communism, these bases need has been questioned.

They have to keep a presence in Japan because of China. That being said, I'm certainly okay with closing some of these bases that make no sense. If we go to war then we will be invited into UK bases, or Germany, or whomever, should there be a reason.

Good start....but...just a tip of the iceberg of what should be done IMO.

It is time we force many of these Welfare countries to defend themselves by leaving. It must be wonderful to have all that extra money laying around if you don't have a defense budget.

(01-09-2015 11:15 AM)Fo Shizzle Wrote:  Good start....but...just a tip of the iceberg of what should be done IMO.

+1

Military expenditure (the war kind, not the science kind) has been over the top for 20 years now.

(01-09-2015 11:18 AM)JDTulane Wrote:  

(01-09-2015 11:15 AM)Fo Shizzle Wrote:  Good start....but...just a tip of the iceberg of what should be done IMO.

+1

Military expenditure (the war kind, not the science kind) has been over the top for 20 years now.

Ike warned us in his farewell speech of interventionism and militarism. We did not heed his advice and have allowed the military and the industrial complex to expand and grow ever since.

$500 million is petty change. You'll never see it anyway - they're just going to put it into something even more inefficient.

Our country loves to save pennies - and then turn around and blow dollars.

Also, keep in mind that this will result in a number of Americans either leaving our tax base OR coming back home to find out that they'll not immediately find work.

This isn't always peaches and cream.

As a world power, I think that having some presence overseas is a good thing. We need to be a leader and a stabilizing force.

Some good news.

I'm cool with reducing our overseas bases and presence by 99%.

(01-09-2015 12:26 PM)oliveandblue Wrote:  $500 million is petty change. You'll never see it anyway - they're just going to put it into something even more inefficient.

Our country loves to save pennies - and then turn around and blow dollars.

Also, keep in mind that this will result in a number of Americans either leaving our tax base OR coming back home to find out that they'll not immediately find work.

This isn't always peaches and cream.

As a world power, I think that having some presence overseas is a good thing. We need to be a leader and a stabilizing force.

The money is less important than the closing of the base IMO. Scaling back prudently our imperialist presence all over the globe is a positive.

In today's world of asymmetrical warfare, small teams of SEALs, etc., can be anywhere in the world in 24 hours. Yet having forward billeting in Europe and Japan can cut that down to less than 12 hours. That could make a difference in a localized crisis.

There is also a need to provide support for the Navy and aircraft (fighters, bombers and tankers).

Therefore, I'm not sure that closing bases is in our best interest.

(01-09-2015 01:36 PM)QuestionSocratic Wrote:  In today's world of asymmetrical warfare, small teams of SEALs, etc., can be anywhere in the world in 24 hours. Yet having forward billeting in Europe and Japan can cut that down to less than 12 hours. That could make a difference in a localized crisis.

There is also a need to provide support for the Navy and aircraft (fighters, bombers and tankers).

Therefore, I'm not sure that closing bases is in our best interest.

There are for sure legitimate reasons for keeping certain assets. Where it does not limit OUR security? I have a problem with keeping them. Much of what we are doing is protecting other nations. We have incentivized them to simply be welfare queens. It needs to stop. They need to pay for their own security.

(01-09-2015 12:26 PM)oliveandblue Wrote:  $500 million is petty change. You'll never see it anyway - they're just going to put it into something even more inefficient.

Our country loves to save pennies - and then turn around and blow dollars.

Also, keep in mind that this will result in a number of Americans either leaving our tax base OR coming back home to find out that they'll not immediately find work.

This isn't always peaches and cream.

As a world power, I think that having some presence overseas is a good thing. We need to be a leader and a stabilizing force.

The US will still maintain its presence in Rota, SP as well as in Italy. So Europe isn't being totally abandoned. There are still a lot of facilities out there that should be headed for the chopping block. But this is a welcome start.

Rota, Spain is a nice little base. I enjoyed their base bar a ton.

(01-09-2015 12:26 PM)oliveandblue Wrote:  having some presence overseas is a good thing. We need to be a leader and a stabilizing force.

(01-09-2015 01:45 PM)Fo Shizzle Wrote:  Much of what we are doing is protecting other nations. We have incentivized them to simply be welfare queens. It needs to stop. They need to pay for their own security.

(01-09-2015 02:39 PM)vandiver49 Wrote:  There are still a lot of facilities out there that should be headed for the chopping block. But this is a welcome start.

The quoted comments are all true. A lot of political gold could be mined by a candidate who understands that and can explain an approach to the outside world that emphasizes all three points.

(01-09-2015 01:36 PM)QuestionSocratic Wrote:  In today's world of asymmetrical warfare, small teams of SEALs, etc., can be anywhere in the world in 24 hours. Yet having forward billeting in Europe and Japan can cut that down to less than 12 hours. That could make a difference in a localized crisis.
There is also a need to provide support for the Navy and aircraft (fighters, bombers and tankers).
Therefore, I'm not sure that closing bases is in our best interest.

You don't need a whole base to support a SEAL team. What they need can be accomplished through a tenant command on an allied base. Obviously there's a risk that such allies could deny us the right to operate in a particular emergency, but they have that right with bases as well.

There have been several proposals to cut back to having bases only on US sovereign soil. That would mean pulling Pacific assets back to Guam, closing down European bases. In the Indian Ocean, we would have to do something with Diego Garcia; right now we are there on a 99-year lease from the Brits, but we could probably find a price at which we could acquire it outright and that might be a good move. There is an argument that we would expose Korea too much with such a move, but maybe we leave some troops there and maybe Korea and Japan prepare for our departure by upgrading their own capabilities.

What I'd look at doing, in both Europe and Japan/Korea, is prepositioning supplies with a cadre for security and maintenance, to be augmented by deploying troops from the states. And those deploying troops could be converted from active slots costing about $100,000/year to reserve slots costing about $20,000/year to maintain. We could substantially increase our potential end strength by replacing one active duty slot with 2 or 3 reserve slots, and still save money. One thing people don't realize is that the people we have forward deployed don't have a huge stockpile of supplies backing them up, and moving beans, bullets, and black oil to keep them going is a much harder logistics problem than moving people to operate pre-positioned materiel.