Bush to announce US troop pullouts from Europe, Asia on Monday
 

The United States is expected to announce Monday that it is pulling 100,000 troops out of Europe and Asia, the Financial Times newspaper reported Saturday.

It said the withdrawals -- the largest restructuring of Washington's military presence abroad since World War II -- would be announced in a speech by US President George W. Bush.

Citing "people briefed on the plan" in a front-page story datelined London, the newspaper said two-thirds of the reductions would be in Europe, with 70,000 troops -- mostly from Germany -- being sent back to stateside bases.

"In Asia, the drawdown is expected to include the 3,500-soldier brigade from South Korea, recently deployed in Iraq, but will also include scaling down presences in several other countries in the region," it said.

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I like it. Let other countries spend more money on their own defense. Bringing the troops home will save money and can contribute to homeland defense.

Sounds good to me.

Dunno if "Ram-shaft" and "Spang-Quentin" (Ramstein and Spangdahlem AB) will suffer through the drawdown, though. Sembach and Rhein-Main are now closed or about to close, though.

I dunno, I feel a little more comfy with our troops having a major presence in Europe and Asia . . . has to have a nice psycholgical affect on some of the more hostile politicians

I'd never like to see a total pullout from there. The place over the last several hundred years has had a nasty history of war. I think the US presence is a real stabilizing force.

Of course, with the EU and all of that, I think war is much less likely. I think the people are too pacified at this time to really be in favor of any kind of military conflict. But you never know.

Supposedly, some will be moved to the States and some will be sent to expansion countries of NATO or to Eastern Europe. Although, since the Administration will be ramping up going to war with Iran in September, who knows?

"Iran is going to be the 800-pound gorilla of American foreign policy come September,” said a US State Department official.

Its about time. We can't afford to be the stabilizing element there anymore. The Europeans need to sink or swim.

This will allow the US to deploy forces, where needed, while being able to keep defense spending under 5% of GDP.

After the stunt thet France, Germany and Russia pulled in the UN, F 'em. They're on their own. No more economic prosperity on our dime.

What's your source for this?

Good move.

I was wondering the same thing.

I have heard statements from officials that Iran will be the 800 pound gorilla of foriegn policy around September, but I haven't seen any action to back that up.

Do a search on google for "Iran" and "800" and "Gorilla" and it's amazing how many hits you'll get with all 3. It has to be a talking point or something.

This article sheds some light on the gorilla comment:
Bush admin is pressuring Iran in a similar fashion as they did Iraq 2 years ago.

Hmmm... now that's interesting.

Well I can think is to what location are the troops being moved to? In keeping with US military strategy it would have to be a location that is vital to protecting US interests and confronting threats to these interests... so now that the Cold War is done and the War on Terror is in full swing... what Middle East location do you think will become the new central location for US troops to quickly deploy from? Could it be Iraq? Or as some have suggested... is there another country in mind?

Right now, almost all the command and control facilities of U.S. Central Command are now located in Qatar, Kuwait, and other Gulf countries instead of Saudi Arabia. Don't forget we still have bases in Turkey as well (and the latter is a NATO country).

That is interesting.

And again, isn't it strange how that 800 pound gorilla comment is coming up in so many various forms in so many places? Both on conservative and liberal sites? Very strange. I'd almost smell some sort of conspiracy, but I know the two sides couldn't work together on something like that in this political season.

If they could, now that'd be scary.

Of course, Iran with nukes... now that's scary as well.

The strange thing about Iran is that I know lots of folks from Iran. I'd say their culture is more similar to ours in the US than it is different. Strange that our countries would be so opposed to eachother over this whole religion thing.