Yeah, with Trump moving troops out of Germany because he believes, contrary to all facts, we'd be trying to rip them off.
Not to mention the whole Iraq fiasco with Bush trying to rope NATO allies in a war based on lies.
The underlying causes of these changes are Germany (1) continuing to spend less than 2% of GDP on defense; (2) its 2019 announcement that its pushing back its 2% target date from 2024 (agreed upon in 2015) to 2031; and, (3) continued German support for Nord Stream 2.
America is publicly penalizing Germany for the above reasons, which will likely disincentivize similar actions by nations receiving US troops from Germany and other host nations in Europe. Moreover, it seems some troops are likely slated for rebasing in the Indo-Pacific which will bolster US' power there.
The only thing this will lead to is a breakup or a massive relevancy drop of NATO. Europe is already emancipating themselves, the US will continue to lose influence - to the benefit of China and Russia, of course.
Al Qaeda started the Afghanistan war.
I think the move is really poorly thought out if the goal is to penalize Germany and discourage their behavior. Because what is Germany losing? The political embarrassment of having troops leave? Is that really worth the billions it will cost to move troops? Because I feel like if the US was willing to spend billions to apply political pressure to Germany there could have been much more effective ways to go about it. And then there's the damage this does to the security of Europe broadly. If this in any way reduces our ability to deter Russia, that hurts all of NATO, not just Germany.
The thing you (and Trump) are meaning is the total defense spending as percentage of GDP. Germany cannot be "delinquent" here by definition! Every country is legally free to spend whatever it wants on defense. The "2%"is an informal goal only, not backed by any international treaty!
Trump just doesn't understand the geostrategic position of the U.S., where troops stationed in critical countries prevent invasions which would upturn its imperial economic order. Trump thinks the U.S. has stationed troops in SK, Germany, Taiwan for the countries' interests, where they were clearly deployed there to defend its own.
If we had a democratic system we wouldn't waste so many resources on armaments. That's why the military-industrial complex destroyed our previously somewhat-democratic system.
However, it is a common defense treaty, and as such each member is expected to contribute a proportionate amount to their own military. Most recently the agreed level was 2% of GDP, which Germany has consistently fallen short of. Both Obama and Bush complained about it as well, but they both had a reasonable understanding of how things worked.