Timeline for Why is Europe (Germany in particular) apparently paying so little for US troop presence/protection, compared to South Korea?
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| Feb 24 at 0:59 | history | protected | got trolled too much this week | ||
| Feb 23 at 18:40 | comment | added | Charles Duffy | Germany houses what as far as I know is the largest US military hospital in Europe (I once did a bit of contract work on telemedicine tooling allowing doctors from a major US research university to interact with their patients). Not needing to transport soldiers from locations on that side of the Atlantic all the way back to the US for treatment is, of course, one of the many benefits the US gets from the arrangement. | |
| Feb 22 at 19:10 | comment | added | got trolled too much this week | @ScottishTapWater: YMMV: politics.stackexchange.com/questions/83064/… | |
| Feb 22 at 18:11 | comment | added | Fernando Martinez | Its time we stop giving our tax money to germany | |
| Feb 22 at 16:28 | answer | added | codeMonkey | timeline score: 0 | |
| Feb 22 at 14:49 | answer | added | Hobbamok | timeline score: 11 | |
| Feb 22 at 14:45 | comment | added | ScottishTapWater | The bases in Germany are for the benefit of US power projection, not to defend Germany. The bases in Soeul are to defend South Korea (primarily). Why would Germany pay for something that benefits the US? | |
| Feb 22 at 10:12 | comment | added | NoDataDumpNoContribution | And the question kind of suggests that Germany is the outlier while it could as well be South Korea. The question could also be why South Korea is paying so much. If only we knew what other countries are paying (or getting). | |
| Feb 22 at 0:51 | comment | added | Kevin Keane | In addition to all that, keep in mind that Germany has always been ambivalent about the US presence there. At least since the 1970s, many people would prefer US bases gone, and until the Ukraine invasion, the two previous chancellors, Merkel and Schoeder, actively pursued a policy of reducing US connections in favor of approaching Russia. Of course, today that is out the window. | |
| Feb 22 at 0:49 | comment | added | ohwilleke♦ | A general comment: The question implicitly assumes (like many questions at Politics.SE) that things happen differently in separate cases for rational analyzed reasons that are fair and make sense compared to each other. This is almost never the case. This isn't how international relations is done. Nobody when negotiating with Germany asks if this is fair to South Korea. Each situation evolves in a path dependent way of its own to produce a status quo. | |
| Feb 21 at 22:26 | history | became hot network question | |||
| Feb 21 at 17:27 | comment | added | Italian Philosophers 4 Monica | some more background reading re Korea reuters.com/article/idUSKBN2AZ0S0 I would hazard that the original historical divergence in 1966 was due to the fact that while losing Korea - to NK/China would have really bad for the US, losing Europe would have been an existential threat, leaving the US to face off alone against the USSR. | |
| Feb 21 at 15:31 | comment | added | Lag | Of course it's a two-way street. The USA wants its forces in Germany because there is a benefit to the USA beyond protection money and arms sales. Some presence of Country A's military in allied Country B is a benefit to both countries. A benefit to Country A is that its foreign-stationed military doesn't have to travel nearly so far to where Country A wants them to be. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_projection. The distance between Dover AFB and Baghdad is nearly three times the distance between Ramstein and Baghdad. Iraq war: 100s of flights/month, 10s of millions of pounds of cargo. | |
| Feb 21 at 15:23 | history | edited | got trolled too much this week | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
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| Feb 21 at 15:04 | history | edited | got trolled too much this week | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
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| Feb 21 at 15:02 | answer | added | Morresh | timeline score: 32 | |
| Feb 21 at 15:00 | history | edited | got trolled too much this week | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
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| Feb 21 at 14:50 | comment | added | Morisco | I think it is a two-way street: the US does provide a protections, but it also gets in exchange loyalty, adhering to the US line in international policy, buying the US arms, etc. If the US asked Germany for more money, perhaps the latter would prefer to maintain bigger own armed forces, or would demand reduction of the US presence, etc. It is interesting to discuss various factors incorporated in this balance - by comparison with Korea seems far-fetched. | |
| Feb 21 at 14:43 | comment | added | sfxedit | Your question isn't clear - why do you expect EU or Germany to pay more than South Korea that faces an imminent nuclear threat and possible invasion from North Korea? Europe (or Germany) has been relatively conflict-free till the Russia - Ukraine war. After the Russian invasion, all EU members of NATO have committed to increase the defense spending which is what you would rationally expect a country to do - revise budget according threat perception. (Note also that your title is quite different from the final question you emphasise). | |
| Feb 21 at 14:23 | history | asked | got trolled too much this week | CC BY-SA 4.0 |