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Comment by xyzal | Hacker News Reader

As an East European, I just laughed out loud. Presence of U.S. troops on our soil means absence of other troops, which most of us would consider a win, given our historical experience.

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Most European countries do not have US troops on their soil. Hosting foreign troops means that the country has a weak military, or in the case of Germany additionally that it lost a war.

It’s not exactly something to be proud of and makes those countries vulnerable to political pressure from the US and a primary target in case of large-scale war. Beats being occupied by a hostile power by far, but being independent is still the best.

UK, italy, spain, australia, saudi arabia, turkey, japan, south korea all have a pretty significant US military presence, right? I don't think any of those are especially weak (they all seem to be ranked at least in the top 20-30 countries based on some quick googling).

Look how it's turning out for Ukraine. If the USA wanted to avoid this tragedy, they would have a) sent 1000 personnel to East Ukraine just to sit there and play Xbox all day, b) parked a few destroyers in the Crimea region. Had they done that, Russia would never NEVER consider this move.

Don't get me wrong, I fully blame Putin on this, but a deterrent was badly needed. We knew from Nov 2021 that troops were building up on Ukraine border.

Is that the part of your flowchart where everything converges on "US bad"?

US offers to station troops in a country -> US bad, imperialism

US doesn't offer to station troops in a country -> US bad for not protecting

X and NATO talk over membership -> NATO bad, aggressive, imperialistic, threatens Russia

NATO doesn't let X join -> NATO bad for not protecting against Russia

Not the same person. But you're right. Damned if you do, damned if you don't.

Why is that the responsibility of middle class taxpayers in the US though?

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