see, this is a good example of the stupid side of donald trump's foreign policy.

trump's argument for pulling troops out of germany goes something like this: because germany engages in commerce with russia, it is unfair for it to ask the united states to protect it from russian aggression. i guess that the conclusion is that if they are going to engage in commerce with russia then they should face the consequences of russian tactics.

it's trumpian in that it's a threat, an intimidation tactic. the goal is probably not to remove troops from germany, but to bully the germans into buying fracked natural gas from the united states. so, it's a bluff, and we'll see if it actually happens.

but, it still demonstrates a fundamentally untactical way to view the world that has the potential for strongly self-defeating outcomes.

years ago, the united states saw germany as a tactical subject-ally, both in the sense of it's utility as a manufacturing center and in the sense of it being a buffer state to the access of western technology; that is, it was necessary to control germany for no other reason than to keep the russians from benefiting so dramatically from the understanding of vastly superior german technology. so, the united states deployed troops in the region to protect something very valuable to it.

while commercial links of the type described by trump did not exist in the cold war, an america of the past may have actually found it convenient that so much of the energy potential of russia's productive capacity was being exported to their competitors, who are our client-state, instead. stalin would have laughed at the idea of exporting gas to western europe - that gas belonged to russia.

so, the germans might have some right to a little self-dignity in the face of trump throwing away as valuable a prize as they, on such flimsy pretexts; the existence of those troops is hardly an act of benevolence, but muscle to protect a valuable asset.

if it weren't a bluff.

https://nypost.com/2020/07/31/president-trump-takes-on-the-permanent-war-lobby-over-germany/