Troop withdrawal politics

General Wesley Clark, the commander who essentially wanted to get NATO involved in a shooting match with the Russians in Serbia, is complaining about the redeployment of US troops from Central Europe. He claims it will weaken US security.

Really?

How does removing troops from Germany, where the specter of Soviet domination no longer looms, harm US security? Will the Poles finally seek revenge for the depradations the Russians and Germans have visited upon Poland? Is Germany strategically located with respect to potential terrorist hotspots like Iraq, Iran, and Syria? Isn't the US plan to have mobile forces (i.e., the types of forces that overthrew the Taliban and Saddam in mere weeks) and mobile operational bases closer to the likely military fronts (i.e., Romania, Turkey, Hungary -- all of which are closer to the Middle East and caucasus than Germany) better than having a standing and highly expensive presence in an area that is no longer a strategic military front?

The logic of this escapes Clark, but that is to be expected. After all, during the Cold War, it was the Democrats who complained loudly and bitterly about stationing so many US troops in West Germany and decried the Europeans' inability to provide more for their own defense.

The US military welfare to western Europe has had long-term effects as Mark Steyn notes in the editorial linked in the title:

This will undoubtedly be welcome news to the likes of Goran Persson, the Swedish prime minister, who famously declared that the purpose of the European Union is that "it's one of the few institutions we can develop as a balance to US world domination". It must surely be awfully embarrassing to be the first superpower in history to be permanently garrisoned by your principal rival superpower.
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Like any other form of welfare, defence welfare is a hard habit to break and profoundly damaging to the recipient. The peculiarly obnoxious character of modern Europe is a logical consequence of Washington's willingness to absolve it of responsibility for its own security. Our Defence Editor, John Keegan, once wrote that "without armed forces a state does not exist".

That's true in a certain sense. But, in another, for wealthy nations who've found a sugar daddy, it's marvellously liberating. You're able to preen and pose on the world stage secure in the knowledge that nobody expects you to do anything about it. . .
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European countries now have attitudes in inverse proportion to the likelihood of their acting upon them. They're like my hippy-dippy Vermont neighbours who drive around with "Free Tibet" bumper stickers. Every couple of years, they trade in the Volvo for a Subaru, and painstakingly paste a new "Free Tibet" sticker on the back.

What are they doing to free Tibet? Nothing. Tibet is as unfree now as it was when they started advertising their commitment to a free Tibet. And it will be just as unfree when they buy their next car and slap on the old sticker one mo' time. [But] If Don Rumsfeld were to say, "Free Tibet'? That's a great idea! The Third Infantry Division go in on Thursday," all the 'Free Tibet' crowd would be driving around with 'War is not the answer' stickers. When entire nations embrace self-congratulatory holier-than-thou moral poseurdom as a way of life, it's even less attractive. The Belgians weren't half as insufferable when they were the German army's preferred shortcut to France.

. . . At Friday's Olympics ceremony, for example, I noticed the team from liberated Afghanistan drew far more enthusiastic cheers from the Athens crowd than the team of the country that actually liberated them.

Fair enough. But what then is the practical value of their professed support for the Afghans? At the time of the Afghan liberation, a poll found only 5.2 per cent of Greeks supported the war.

A wealthy continent liberated from the burdens of military expenditure is also liberated to a large degree from reality. Poor peoples have no choice but to live in the real world: if a drought wipes out their crops, they starve. Likewise, rich, powerful nations have traditionally required great vigilance to maintain their wealth and power.

But Europe increasingly resembles those insulated celebrities being shuttled around town from one humanitarian gala to another – like Barbra Streisand flying in by private jet to discuss excessive energy consumption with President Clinton. Just as elderly rockers and Hollywood divas are largely free from the tedious responsibilities of rich industrialists or supermarket magnates – payroll costs and plant upgrades – so the EU can flaunt its "concerns" about the world and leave the logistics to others.