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Comment by omegaham | Hacker News Reader

Most of Europe would not be okay with that - the US currently massively subsidizes the defense costs of European military forces with its bases. And it's not just the actual US forces there - it's logistics and training as well. For example, France likes to do peacekeeping operations in Africa. They can do so effectively because the US provides the airlift capability through their bases in Europe.

Basically, if the US bases go, the capabilities of much of the European military forces go bye-bye. They're optimized for using American logistical support, (because they have no reason to develop their own) and all of that comes through American bases in the region. I'm sure that some political parties in Europe would be completely okay with losing that capability, but most people agree that there is one thing worse than a strong military, and that's a weak military that costs the same amount of money as a strong military.

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All the more reason. We Europeans should be able to manage this ourselves.

You would have to gut social programs to pay for it, which people may or may not be okay with.

Just to provide some numbers - the USAF's budget is $170 billion per year. For comparison, that's about the cost of Britain's entire NHS. A very large amount of that goes to airlift capability - plenty of money is spent on air superiority, but the USAF's primary mission in this era of asymmetric warfare is logistical support.

Basically, the attitude of most European governments is "If the US is willing to pay for it, why should we reject their help?"

Maybe this should get brought up every time the Internet scoffs at America's weak social programs.

This is one of the reasons why leftists are pretty much universally for massive cuts in military spending. Which makes sense - you can't have both.

The Europeans would have to cut their own social programs if they wanted to do any peacekeeping / humanitarian aid operations - all of that is contingent on American logistical support. Hell, my guess is that they would castigate a more leftist, benign American government; it would make things a hell of a lot harder for a lot of people.

Lefists? Is that what we are now, leftists and hawks?

I'm a liberal, and I'd take massive cuts at the war department even without re spending it all on entitlements.

And we don't need such a huge military for humanitarian work either.

Not sure I'm getting the connection. Doesn't the Strategic Airlift Capability https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategic_Airlift_Capability have 3 planes?

Is the cost for that 4.5 x higher than Delta Air Lines annual revenue? ($37.7 billion 2013)

I'm sure most of the cost of USAF is on other things...

The US operates 5,638 military aircraft, including 222 C-17A Globemasters, 261 C-130H Hercules planes, and 104 C-130Js.

The Strategic Airlift Capability has 3 C-17s.

The SAC is, frankly, a symbolic gesture to say, "Yes, we're going to include everyone." The bulk of the heavy lifting is done by standard USAF planes.

> You would have to gut social programs to pay for it

Probably not that much. We need defense force, we don't need to "police" the world (which really means imperialism). We don't need nuclear capabilities.

Also, the relation between defense and social spending is tenuous at best. Both scale linearly with the size of the economy. Defense spending can actually be beneficial in creating jobs and improving technology.

>Probably not that much. We need defense force, we don't need to "police" the world (which really means imperialism). We don't need nuclear capabilities.

It's not us you'll have to convince of this, it's your government. They tend to be a bit prickly about such things, no matter how enlightened the general populace is.

As an American.. if a friendly country (England, France, Canada) could do something to lower our defense spending by 10%.. even if that meant a few bases on our soil.. YES. I would not like more English troops than American troops on my soil, but a few thousand men to lower my deficit spending? Sign me up.

What's your citation of European public opinion? If you're from the US, would you be happy if a foreign power occupied your homeland with garrisons? Would you accept their self-serving benevolent rhetoric, given their constant militant behavior (which among other things created a refugee crisis)?

Their opinions may not be in favor of American bases now, but my guess is that they will change in a hurry when the host countries realize how much it costs to maintain their own defense.

> Most of Europe would not be okay with that

Do you have any opinion polls to back that up?

FWIW, a quick google shows that 51% of likely US voters in 2012 wanted all US troops out of western Europe. (http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/gene...) So the US appears strongly against occupying western Europe with garrisons... if we identify "the US" by its people rather than government.

No, but I do know that there was a bunch of outcry when the US started closing bases in Europe to save money. All of that came from governments, though. I'm not sure what the actual people think.

> All of that came from governments, though. I'm not sure what the actual people think.

I think it is important not to say "Most of Europe would not be ok with that" when what one means is "European governments would publicly object to that". The US government, for instance, does many things that the public at large disapproves of, and public governmental statements are not necessarily representative of what the government is actually advocating behind closed doors.

In otherwords, without public opinion polls, we are at least two levels removed from knowing whether "Most of Europe would not be ok with that."

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