Tagwyn

The USA had thousands of troops deployed in Korea and in W. Europe. I, in my limited view of things, do not see any need for those to be where they are. Is it possible for someone to explain to be logically why we do not redeply these troops to Iraq to finally crush the Jihadists and thier allies ... and Iran if needed? Thanks in advance. Tagwyn

Skull6

Those troops aren't there to enforce the will of the U.S. by force. They are there under agreements made with the host Nations.

So, what you are proposing is that we just nullify those previous international agreements and move our troops to other areas of operations right now?

P.S. Other nations are using the time the U.S. is in Afghanistan & Iraq to act on their own endeavors world-wide. Having U.S. troops pre-deployed to other regions of the world is actually helping us right now.

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If you know the enemy and yourself you need not fear the results of a hundred battles. - Sun Tzu

The Black Ghost

And more troops would not mean the insurgents would be crushed.

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'Much madness is divinest sense'

Shek

The troops in Europe are being rotated through Iraq just as the troops stateside are. The troops in Korea (which have been reduced in the past few years) serve as a tripwire deterrent against North Korea. Remove them, you place some doubt into the strength of the US commitment to South Korea and the Pacific Rim, and next thing you know, Kim Jung Il might roll the dice with an invasion and/or decide to ramp back up his nuke production, and you've just created a situation to where we need to send troops to the Korean peninsula. With your scenario, your attempt to gain an extra brigade might actually siphon off brigades from the effort in Iraq.

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"So little pains do the vulgar take in the investigation of truth, accepting readily the first story that comes to hand." Thucydides 1.20.3

Albany Rifles

Almost all of the troops in Europe are logistics troops. And along with the 2 divisions and 1 brigade (Italy) have all rotated several times into Iraq and/or Astan

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"Always with the negative waves Moriarty, always with the negative waves." TSGT Oddball, Tank Commander

Tagwyn

People: I do not agree with your assesment of the need to have forces in either Korea or EU. If there is no need for them to be there ... take them home. They are not any more needed than **** on a boar! There is no threat from E. Europe or Russia. To heck with contracts with W. Gernany. Those folks believe they had better troops than ours and only lost because of the Red Army. My brother spent 3 years in Germany and heard this drivel all the time. Ramstein AFB should remain.
Kim will not attack because of the US fleet. He has been warned not to test our resolve. If the cowardly, ignorant Kool-aide drinkers win the next election, all bets are off. ROK forces are actually more than suffiecent to repel the red army of N.K. with the help of our fleet. Additionally, China would not approve such a move and would probably activly resist such nonsense. Tag

Officer of Engineers

12 September, 2001. There is your need right there.

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Chimo

Officer of Engineers

What the hell?

You claim to be a lawyer and you have not read the North Atlantic Treaty. You claim to be in the military and you believe this crap about German military performance (the score is two nothing - take a hint). You claim to have eyes only clearance but obviously you missed the fact that the NKs have a much more superior standing force than Seoul.

Cast a lot of doubts on your claims.

entropy

Kim has tons of heavy artillery aimed at Seoul, infiltration forces and quite a big army that is taught to survive on it's own by plundering and stealing. I've read about the determination of KPA troops, and ravenous is a good word to describe them.

Oh yes and I don't want to think about the possiblity of Korean nuclear artillery


NATO may need a refurbishment, but I doubt it will happen. and if it will not happen, the US can't just break treaty and pull out.

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If memory serves...

Feanor

Didn't we spend another 5 pages in a different thread proving how worthless and weak the NK's paper tiger is?

Officer of Engineers

The prep work is the same. You don't build tank traps to stop T-34s. You build them to stop M1A9000s. You don't expose your artillery to enemy fire no matter how inaccurate they are. You dig them in to give them that extra protection. You don't place a platoon to stop a division. You use a brigade as the blocking force. You don't assume your minefields will stop them cold. You hold back a reserve in anticipation of a break through.

No matter how weak the NKs actually are, their numbers will force you to do a hell of a lot of work to stop them.

Shek

Who gets to northern Africa quicker? An airborne brigade out of Italy or Bragg? How do you throughput brigades preparing for Iraq or Afghanistan using only two combat training centers instead of three?

Bottomline, there are plenty of great reasons to keep folks in Europe and Korea. Besides, you pull everyone back stateside, your retention expenses will increase because Europe is a great tour that many folks try their best to hold on to for as long as possible, and while Korea doesn't sound like my cup of tea, there are plenty of folks who feel the exact same way about it.

Ironduke

If it could be summed up in two words, force projection.

This article could be of some help:
Power projection - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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The Buck Stops Here

kato

Or other rear echelon troops.

The Airforce and Army logistics turntables for Iraq are located in Germany (Ramstein and Mannheim, respectively). All flights to Iraq get refueled somewhere over Western Europe, or land there.
Soldiers wounded in Iraq are evacuated to hospitals in Germany (Landstuhl and Heidelberg). The overall command center for all NATO ground operations (like ISAF) is in Germany, as well as the coordination command for US Army Aviation through half the world (both in Heidelberg - 7th Army and V Corps commands, also LANDCENT and AFOD). Grafenwöhr is a major US Army training site - one of the main sites for pre-deployment live-fire training.

Well, Korea has been explained.

Without these (approximately 40,000) troops in Germany, power projection operations throughout the Middle East would immediately collapse. It's not just a matter of "getting there faster" - the US would have significant problems (to the point of "not possible") supporting any operations in the Eurasian hemisphere without permanent forward bases like these.

And Ramstein isn't the only one. Without Mannheim and its associated logistics bases, there wouldn't be any ammunition or spare parts for Iraq. Without Landstuhl, some 15,000 wounded so far would have had to have been evacuated to the US instead. Without Vicenza and Aviano in Italy, the 173rd Airborne Bde would have spent quite a bit longer than 5 hours in their planes when opening the Northern Front in 2003.

Contracts with Germany? Do you realize that Germany is not the one benefitting the most from these (see above)? Do you realize Germany actually pays operating costs for these bases (due to occupation rules) and employed several thousand soldiers protecting these bases in 2003 when the US lacked ground forces?