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Should the US reduce its global military presence?

Should the US reduce its global military presence?

  • Yes, drastically

    Votes: 50 75.8%

  • Yes, just slightly

    Votes: 8 12.1%

  • I don't know

    Votes: 3 4.5%

  • No, the current situation is fine

    Votes: 2 3.0%

  • No, even more troops should be deployed overseas

    Votes: 3 4.5%
  • Total voters
    66
FluffyNinja said:
We tried that in Vietnam. Kennedy called them "Advisors". It just doesn't have the same effect. Can't we please just learn from the mistakes of the past use common sense and move on.

Our educational system is obviously failing........does anyone learn history of the non-politically correct variety any longer? *sighs*
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Oh, and everything just went swimmingly well when Johnson decided to ramp up the military advisers to a real fighting force and still refer to it as a "police action with half a million soldiers involved."
 
FluffyNinja said:
Do you believe that the US was prepared to go to war in 1916? Perhaps you should try reading history. Or go back to your HS history teacher and demand your parents' tax money be returned. :roll:
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I'm not turning this into a historical debate. That question literally has no relevance in modern times. WWII was the last time two major world powers fought each other. The closest thing since then was what, the Falklands War? Times have changed, the modern world is so different than the world of the 1910's.
 
Dittohead not! said:
How is 28,000 "meaningful size" against the million man army of NK?

Are we to sacrifice those soldiers in order to have an excuse to fight NK if necessary?
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You seem to be missing the whole point champ. Who said anything about "sacrificing" the troops (except for you)? JUST THE FACT THAT THEY ARE THERE HAS KEPT THE NORTH KOREANS AT BAY. I believe, and this is just IMHO mind you, that as long as even a US presence of 28,000 is on that border, we won't have to worry about seeing a "sacrifice" of American lives.

Now, if we leave and NK invades in full force.......we'll be forced (through alliance) to go back over there in even greater numbers and re-fight the Korean Conflict of 1950-52. In that case we may really see some major US casualties. I'm still holding that the current policy in S Korea is the correct choice......at least for the time being. :shrug:
 
Voltaire X said:
I'm not turning this into a historical debate. That question literally has no relevance in modern times. WWII was the last time two major world powers fought each other. The closest thing since then was what, the Falklands War? Times have changed, the modern world is so different than the world of the 1910's.
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To dismiss policy lessons learned from our past errors is quite ignorant indeed!
 
Dittohead not! said:
Oh, and everything just went swimmingly well when Johnson decided to ramp up the military advisers to a real fighting force and still refer to it as a "police action with half a million soldiers involved."
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I never said that things went well. But the "ramping up" of troop presence by Democrat LBJ, DID have the desired effect......which was to escalate the war.
 
Voltaire X said:
I know. I don't believe it's worth it. I don't believe the DPRK would attack even if we pulled out all of our troops from the region. It would still be a suicide move for them. NK would still be completely destroyed.
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The DPRK has the 4th largest military in the world and has China as a ally which has the largest military in the world.North Korea would not get its ass handed to them.If anything they would destroy most of the ROK military.
 
FluffyNinja said:
You seem to be missing the whole point champ. Who said anything about "sacrificing" the troops (except for you)? JUST THE FACT THAT THEY ARE THERE HAS KEPT THE NORTH KOREANS AT BAY. I believe, and this is just IMHO mind you, that as long as even a US presence of 28,000 is on that border, we won't have to worry about seeing a "sacrifice" of American lives.

Now, if we leave and NK invades in full force.......we'll be forced (through alliance) to go back over there in even greater numbers and re-fight the Korean Conflict of 1950-52. In that case we may really see some major US casualties. I'm still holding that the current policy in S Korea is the correct choice......at least for the time being. :shrug:
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The premise of the post I was responding to was that NK was afraid to attack due to the presence of American troops and the probability that the US would get involved in any war between NK and SK.

If NK knew that we'd protect our small ally, wouldn't that have the same effect?

What would those 28,000 troops be able to do in the case of a massive invasion by NK anyway?
 
Dittohead not! said:
The premise of the post I was responding to was that NK was afraid to attack due to the presence of American troops and the probability that the US would get involved in any war between NK and SK.

If NK knew that we'd protect our small ally, wouldn't that have the same effect?

What would those 28,000 troops be able to do in the case of a massive invasion by NK anyway?
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See jamesrage's post above. He lays it out pretty well. I'm getting bored of repeating the same history lessons for you. :shrug:
 
jamesrage said:
The DPRK has the 4th largest military in the world and has China as a ally which has the largest military in the world.North Korea would not get its ass handed to them.If anything they would destroy most of the ROK military.
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China is NOT North Korea's ally anymore... There is no way in hell that China would go to war with it's #1 trade partner (the US). We are way too interconnected economically. Hong Kong and Shanghai are financial hubs with every US major bank represented. These banks are providing a hell of a lot of services for Chinese companies.


Another thing to add, South Korea is much stronger than it was in the '50s. North Korea is also much weaker. It claims to have a huge number of troops, but these are impoverished and poorly equipped peasants basically. They wouldn't stand a chance in combat. Stop trying to act like North Korea is this huge bully that could crush South Korea if it wasn't for its American guardian angel. That's just totally false.
 
FluffyNinja said:
Anyone care to venture a guess as to what may happen the instant we completely remove our military presence in South Korea.

Also, are you implying by this poll that there are no sovereign nations who ask for/welcome a US presence within their borders?:shrug:
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Then they can pay the full cost of having us there. We can't afford to give it away for free.
 
FluffyNinja said:
See jamesrage's post above. He lays it out pretty well. I'm getting bored of repeating the same history lessons for you. :shrug:
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Of course you are. Your "lessons" are based on nonsense, which doesn't sell very well to me.

The USA has the most powerful military on Earth. China may have more troops, but we have superior weapons. A war between US and China would end badly for both nations. Both of us know this, and aren't about to go to war over a tinpot dictatorship like NK.

and having or not having a few thousand troops in SK would make no difference.
 
Cephus said:
Then they can pay the full cost of having us there. We can't afford to give it away for free.
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I actually agree with this. It's only common sense. So, which President, Sect. of State, or Congressional Majority will have the balls to push for such a policy? That may be the real question we should be considering here.
 
FluffyNinja said:
You know, that's kind of the whole idea behind being "ALLIES".............we support each other in spirit, in trade, and, whether you agree or not.....in national defense. :shrug:
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It's funny how the only ones out there helping others in national defense is us. Apparently, being allies only goes one way.
 
FluffyNinja said:
I actually agree with this. It's only common sense. So, which President, Sect. of State, or Congressional Majority will have the balls to push for such a policy? That may be the real question we should be considering here.
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We both know other countries would never pay it. We're just free defense to them. They want us there because they don't want to have to fund it themselves. If they had the money to pay us for our presence, they could just use it to fund their own military.
 
Voltaire X said:
PLEASE READ BEFORE VOTING

Right now the US military has:

90,000+ troops in Afghanistan
50,000+ troops in Germany
35,000+ troops in Japan
28,000+ troops in South Korea
15,000+ troops in Kuwait
10,000+ troops in Italy
9,000+ troops in the UK
etc.

These troops are deployed for a variety of reasons. Most of these countries are in strategic locations (West Germany was our frontline against the Soviets), but the Cold War is long over. I think our deployments are quite excessive. In fact, I think that at least 90% of these soldiers should be brought home. I'm curious what other users think about this.


Also the source for these numbers, from the Department of Defense itself, is here:

http://siadapp.dmdc.osd.mil/personnel/MILITARY/history/hst1112.pdf
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Well, to be fair, the reason why the U.S. has such a large global military presence is because after WW2, Western Europe was too decimated to fend off the Soviet Union, so it was up to the U.S. to do so as Europe rebuilt. And there are, indeed, many global security concerns, namely piracy, which affects global trade, as well as international and criminal organizations.

The thing is these countries are able to spend more on social spending rather than military spending, so the U.S. is covering for them. But in this global economic recession, the U.S. can't afford to anymore.

Which is why I would like a tariff on imports from countries who don't spend a minimum level on their military. That way the U.S. can get money from them for protecting them and their commerce shipping on the oceans. As well as protecting them from terrorists organizations.
 
Dittohead not! said:
Of course you are. Your "lessons" are based on nonsense, which doesn't sell very well to me.

The USA has the most powerful military on Earth. China may have more troops, but we have superior weapons. A war between US and China would end badly for both nations. Both of us know this, and aren't about to go to war over a tinpot dictatorship like NK.

and having or not having a few thousand troops in SK would make no difference.
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This is what we preached regarding Vietnam and now Afghanistan 11 years later. You are correct, wars are fought differently today. Do you give our enemies enough credit to know that our methods have changed as well? With all of our superiority we've not been able to defeat the Taliban (at least not while we're fighting a PC war). With all of our superior firepower we were not able to defeat Ho Chi Minh's forces in 'Nam (at least not while trying to fight a PC war.) If you need any further history lessons, then you'll simply have to rely on Google as now I have become OFFICIALLY bored with this. Now it's official. :shrug:
 
Dittohead not! said:
Of course you are. Your "lessons" are based on nonsense, which doesn't sell very well to me.

The USA has the most powerful military on Earth. China may have more troops, but we have superior weapons. A war between US and China would end badly for both nations. Both of us know this, and aren't about to go to war over a tinpot dictatorship like NK.

and having or not having a few thousand troops in SK would make no difference.
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Agreed. The only place we need bullets much anymore are in countering insurgencies. And we essentailly have no need to be caught up in any insurgencies anywhere. No need to be losing troops to IED's and being killed by infiltrators in the uniform of friendlies.

We need lines not crossed. And when they are, we turn a trophy of the antagonist into a parking lot. If they do it again, we level two trophies.
 
FluffyNinja said:
In the past, when our leaders have adopted this line of thinking, it usually ended up that a major military conflict erupted and our military forces were so "downsized" that we could not quickly take action. Go all the way back to the ill-prepared Union Army at the outbreak of the US Civil War, WWI, and yes, even at the outbreak of WWII. I could go on, but I've got to go take a shower.
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scalability. we have a basic peacetime military with the ability to rapidly scale up to meet demand.
 
Voltaire X said:
China is NOT North Korea's ally anymore...
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Since when?

There is no way in hell that China would go to war with it's #1 trade partner (the US). We are way too interconnected economically. Hong Kong and Shanghai are financial hubs with every US major bank represented. These banks are providing a hell of a lot of services for Chinese companies.
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People probably thought the same thing about other wars involving trading partners.China can find new trading partners.The traitors in office and globalism scum have certainly made China richer and thus strengthened it's military.

Another thing to add, South Korea is much stronger than it was in the '50s. North Korea is also much weaker. It claims to have a huge number of troops, but these are impoverished and poorly equipped peasants basically. They wouldn't stand a chance in combat.
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North Korea spends a **** load of money on it's military and considering the number of attacks that the DPRK have done over the years and the lack of retaliation from the US and ROK, the DPRK obviously is not as weak as you make them out to be.

Stop trying to act like North Korea is this huge bully that could crush South Korea if it wasn't for its American guardian angel. That's just totally false.
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Those troops are there to serve as human shields in the ROK to deter the DPRK from attacking and nothing more.Obviously you don't know squat
 
FluffyNinja said:
We tried that in Vietnam. Kennedy called them "Advisors". It just doesn't have the same effect. Can't we please just learn from the mistakes of the past use common sense and move on.

Our educational system is obviously failing........does anyone learn history of the non-politically correct variety any longer? *sighs*
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Since I was in the US Army from 1962-Feb 64, and remember very well the adivsors in Vietnam, let's begin by saying they were not guards of an embassy, but genuine military advisors. I lived that history. Don't need to read more books about it.

This nation started helping South Vietnam when Truman started it. Ike sent teachers. Truman had sent them other assistance. Ike believed apparently he could ship teachers of combat who spoke the language who were all Army special forces and that would fix the problem. Kennedy only added more teachers. I spent time at the Army school of languages at Monterey, CA only my course was Army leadership skills and saw those men being trained. Kennedy whom I voted for was my president almost all the way through the Army. I was in Germany when Kennedy got shot. Johnson was president a couple months and I was discharged. A year after I got out and some added months, Lindon Johnson sent troops to effectively invade Vietnam. Democrats in general want to blame Ike when it was Johnson opening up the war to our combat troops. Special forces know combat and are great at combat, but back then, they were functioning teachers to the Vietnamese. Until Johnson made major changes. Thank God I got home early in 64 when that war was very seldom mentioned in the USA by anybody. I knew of it but when I got back to the USA it seemed to me to be a non topic. It became a huge topic once Johnson invaded. When i was based in Germany, I am not positve of our gross troop strength but I believe we had maybe upwards of half a million troops there. We troops in Germany did not ever discuss Vietnam.
 
Robert A Whit said:
Since I was in the US Army from 1962-Feb 64, and remember very well the adivsors in Vietnam, let's begin by saying they were not guards of an embassy, but genuine military advisors. I lived that history. Don't need to read more books about it.

This nation started helping South Vietnam when Truman started it. Ike sent teachers. Truman had sent them other assistance. Ike believed apparently he could ship teachers of combat who spoke the language who were all Army special forces and that would fix the problem. Kennedy only added more teachers. I spent time at the Army school of languages at Monterey, CA only my course was Army leadership skills and saw those men being trained. Kennedy whom I voted for was my president almost all the way through the Army. I was in Germany when Kennedy got shot. Johnson was president a couple months and I was discharged. A year after I got out and some added months, Lindon Johnson sent troops to effectively invade Vietnam. Democrats in general want to blame Ike when it was Johnson opening up the war to our combat troops. Special forces know combat and are great at combat, but back then, they were functioning teachers to the Vietnamese. Until Johnson made major changes. Thank God I got home early in 64 when that war was very seldom mentioned in the USA by anybody. I knew of it but when I got back to the USA it seemed to me to be a non topic. It became a huge topic once Johnson invaded. When i was based in Germany, I am not positve of our gross troop strength but I believe we had maybe upwards of half a million troops there. We troops in Germany did not ever discuss Vietnam.
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Correct, it was Johnson who sent in the real combat troops to a war that no one called a war, as it was undeclared.

Trying to invade Vietnam without going on a war footing was probably the biggest foreign policy blunder up to that time, maybe the biggest ever.
 
Dittohead not! said:
Correct, it was Johnson who sent in the real combat troops to a war that no one called a war, as it was undeclared.

Trying to invade Vietnam without going on a war footing was probably the biggest foreign policy blunder up to that time, maybe the biggest ever.
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I agree. Even if it was a properly declared war, it still would have been a bad decision.

I regard LBJ as one of the worst presidents of the 20th century. He's not as bad as Nixon in my opinion, but about on par with George W Bush.
 
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Robert A Whit said:
Since I was in the US Army from 1962-Feb 64, and remember very well the adivsors in Vietnam, let's begin by saying they were not guards of an embassy, but genuine military advisors. I lived that history. Don't need to read more books about it.

This nation started helping South Vietnam when Truman started it. Ike sent teachers. Truman had sent them other assistance. Ike believed apparently he could ship teachers of combat who spoke the language who were all Army special forces and that would fix the problem. Kennedy only added more teachers. I spent time at the Army school of languages at Monterey, CA only my course was Army leadership skills and saw those men being trained. Kennedy whom I voted for was my president almost all the way through the Army. I was in Germany when Kennedy got shot. Johnson was president a couple months and I was discharged. A year after I got out and some added months, Lindon Johnson sent troops to effectively invade Vietnam. Democrats in general want to blame Ike when it was Johnson opening up the war to our combat troops. Special forces know combat and are great at combat, but back then, they were functioning teachers to the Vietnamese. Until Johnson made major changes. Thank God I got home early in 64 when that war was very seldom mentioned in the USA by anybody. I knew of it but when I got back to the USA it seemed to me to be a non topic. It became a huge topic once Johnson invaded. When i was based in Germany, I am not positve of our gross troop strength but I believe we had maybe upwards of half a million troops there. We troops in Germany did not ever discuss Vietnam.
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Thank you for your service! My father is a Vietnam vet (1967-68 - through the Tet Offensive) and I never truly appreciated his service until I learned a little history and was later activated myself as an Army Reservist to serve a year-long tour in Iraq/Saudi in 1990. I feel badly that our troops during the 'Nam era were placed in the position in which they were by bumbling politicians. I feel badly that the talking heads in Washington created a scenario in which our military could win individual battles.....but sadly, could never truly win the war.

In my reference, I was simply attempting to illustrate to another poster the ineffectiveness of the policy of sending in small numbers of troops to act as advisors. It did not work well in Nam as it certainly did not deter a build-up of the NVA nor did it efficiently encourage the ARVN to stand up and fight the North. I'm certain that the trainers/advisors were outstanding soldiers and did the best that they could under the conditions and considering what/who they had to work with. It was the approach laid out by Eisenhower, propagated by Kennedy, and then escalated by Johnson that was flawed from the beginning.
 
It's simply costing us WAY too much, half is more than sufficient. Better spent on other things like education, infrastructure, and science and tech.
 
I think several things need done, especially getting troops removed from foreign soil other than a couple thousand where it counts; mainly Kuwait, Germany, and Japan. Besides that our law makers need to quit giving sweetheart deals to companies that charge us far more than what some things are actually worth. I would go so far as to say our intelligence agencies need consolidated, reorganized and homeland security needs to be dismantled. These things alone would drastically improve our military and intelligence as well as drastically reduce cost.
 
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