Most people aren’t cheering that we are rearming, but they understand that it is a necessary evil.

Plenty of people are chomping at the bit for a Glorious New War we can all watch on the TV.

Russia is right at our doorsteps

That hasn’t been true in over 40 years. And even when it was true, Europeans suffered far more under the paranoid police states of their own governments than any cross border conflict.

Personally I prefer the first option.

Not like any of us have a material say, but enjoy conscription I guess.

Biggest global rearming since WW1 and people are cheering about it like they don’t understand what happens next.

If they wanted them gone bad enough, they could starve them out.

Who is “they”? Clearly, the German business class don’t want American soldiers gone. They’re a profit center. And the locals who have to deal with these dickbags running around, crashing vehicles, assaulting people at bars, and otherwise making anyone within half a mile of a base miserable clearly don’t have any kind of actual economic control of the municipalities.

Nato was formed in 1949 which was before the korea war and was always about preventing soviet aggression.

Why wasn’t West Germany invited until six years later?

However, Germany could just refuse to allow anyone to supply food, power, petrol etc. to American bases

Why would German business interests turn down lucrative contracts to supply heavily marked up commodities to a captive clientele? And why would the German state government interfere with the finances of prolific political donors?

Maybe the German citizenry could boycott the bases. But they’d need a large nationalist labor movement for that kind of effort. And I’m not seeing it happen in a nation as sharply divided along regional and ethnic lines.

The reason nato was created was the threat of the soviet Russian empire

Not until after the Korean War, and the official entrance of West Germany to NATO, did the goal shift to Soviet containment. The original explicit stated purpose of the organization was to prevent German re-militarization - a perceived error of the original WW1 settlement. Soviet Russia was considered an ally and partner in this purpose under FDR and only became a belligerent under Truman, in the scramble to entrench capitalism as the primary economic model of the Pacific Rim.

Germany should probably consider expelling all US troops stationed in Germany

With what army? They already sold off half their military stockpile to be pissed away by Ukrainians in the Donbas. And the median German is 45, with that number getting even worse when you discount the Middle East migrants that all the white nationalists hate.

Germany is fully occupied and secured by the US. Hell, keeping Germany subservient was the entire reason NATO was created. They’re not going anywhere.

Germany should build up a massive army

The median German is 45 years old.

Less of a third pincer and more of a fifth column, as it were.

Trump is planning a pincer attack on Europe

Dude’s got half the Navy off the coast of Venezuela just arbitrarily killing anyone in a boat. If he’s planning to re-Normandy Europe by way of Greenland (presumably between island hoping off Taiwan into mainland China and sending ground troops to stamp out the Houthis in Yemen) he’s coming at it with surprising subtlety.

Why the hell was Israel allowed to participate?

The Jewish State of Israel has been competing in Eurovision for over 3000 years. They have a long and established legacy of being in the contest. I was digging around in the Levant and I even found an old trophy and some VHS tapes from the 3rd century AD with an Israeli winner’s name printed on it.

Suggesting that they should not be allowed to participate is anti-semitic. It is a clear violation of the most basic and fundamental human rights of the Israeli people. And it is a clear attempt to silence the beautiful voices of the only nation on the coast of the Mediterranean that champions life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

Your comments are being registered. Your personal id has been recorded. Bombers are headed to your position. I hope you realize what an awful person you are for suggesting Israel shouldn’t be allowed to participate during your last 8 minutes of existence.

That’s more just “corruption”. But we’ve been practicing corrupt politics since… checks history textbook… ah, President George Washington.

The problem with the Ukraine/Russia war is that there’s a ton of economic interests geared towards arming belligerents, clearing out native peoples from their land, and looting Ukraine for the benefit of external plutocrats. One could argue this is a problem with every war, particularly in the 400 years since we’ve developed a capitalist form of enterprise. We’re just doing to Ukraine and the surrounding Mediterranean region what Spain, France, and Britain were doing to North America centuries earlier.

That kind of conquest and control is both profitable for the ranking leadership of the invading countries and broadly beneficial for the public at-large who get salaries and investment returns as a consequence of the economic activity of shooting and looting.

So, now we’re describing “imperialism”.

Only a Russian would say this

We’re just on the other side of the country, plundering their real estate Eastward while the Russians move West.

more concerned with its own interests than with supporting its allies

You’re just describing Realpolitik, which we’ve been practicing since at least Nixon

Shame that’s not true

Who keeps giving Grok a gun?

Please read the article you yourself

Buddy, you can try reading past the first paragraph. There’s an extended back and forth in the interview discussing the violence around these bases and their broad unpopularity.

There are people in literally every country that wants foreign influence or bases out, that proves nothing

You don’t think an enormous population of foreign military resulting in high rates of unprosecuted sexual violence and organized crime demonstrates anything about the state of politics in the host country?

So you believe people in Korea, Japan, and the Philippines at the highest levels of power just… want this for their people? Or do you think they’re so beaten down they don’t believe in their own capacity for self-defense?

Random, but did you know an alternate name for Russians where I live is “occupiers”?

I mean, you keep coming back to Russians, as though you think they’re a different species.

I guess you’d call them, what? Orks?

Is the violent occupation of conquered territory only a problem for you when the occupying army is Slavic?

Germany, definitely. We’ve had that country inundated with bases for nearly a century

Brother, this isn’t Pravda

Congress declares war. Not the executive branch

Congress authorized enormous discretion to the president under the NDAA and AUMF. There’s no actual need to declare war in the modern era.