4 ms·
Your top point is honestly the biggest. Until this year, US military bases were seen as an asset. They were thought to deter attacks, and in the case of someon
by kdheiwns 5mo ago
Your top point is honestly the biggest.
Until this year, US military bases were seen as an asset. They were thought to deter attacks, and in the case of someone being crazy enough to attack the country that hosted a US military base, they sold the promise of a quick and decisive response.
But for countries in the Middle East, every base was nothing but a liability with nothing but a long list of detriments. The bases got attacked and destroyed with basically zero effort whatsoever, local militaries had to step up to defend the US bases on their own dime and with their own people putting their lives on the line, and the bases basically just served as provocation and ended up with the countries being attacked as "punishment" for letting the US military operate on their land. And the US put in the bare minimum effort, if any, to defend the countries being attacked. It was basically "that's on you. Buzz off".
Europe is now being threatened with having their US bases cut back/removed entirely and I'm not sure if people are even worried anymore. People have been using the term "paper tiger" to refer to Russia these past 4 years because their efforts at war have been absolutely embarrassing. Somehow the US has made Russia look competent, and despite being against all the BS America did in Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, etc, I didn't think America would somehow show itself to be more rotted out from the inside than Russia. I always assumed the US was competent, albeit war hungry. But somehow competence has completely vanished.
And right now, East Asian allies of the US operate under the very wrong assumption that the US will back them up if China/Russia/North Korea tries something. And now that those countries know the US won't do shit, there's a non zero chance that they've taken war plans from purely hypothetical plans to "we could actually do this" plans.
- esseph 5mo ago> But somehow competence has completely vanished. It was pushed out, by force.
- madaxe_again 5mo agoIt was voted out, by the electorate.
- zingababba 5mo agoIt was replaced, by the tech bros.
- gretch 5mo ago> The bases got attacked and destroyed with basically zero effort whatsoever, local militaries had to step up to defend the US bases on their own dime and with their own people putting their lives on the line As a US citizen, I hope more countries come to this realization and start rejecting these. It's such a lose-lose for everyone The establishment and maintenance of these bases cost the tax payers so much.... If only we could refocus this massive expenditure of resources to internal domestic infrastructure...
- virgildotcodes 5mo agoThe America First MAGA people fail so hard to understand that these expenditures on things like foreign bases and US Aid resulted in far greater returns for us. It's never been about altruism or the greater good. I say this as an anti-empirical leftist with no great sympathy for the effort, but for those proclaiming to put America's interests above all else it's just such an obvious and idiotic short-sighted self-own.
- NickC25 5mo agoUS Aid has probably been the biggest ace the US ever had in its hand. US farmers growing otherwise unprofitable crops with no buyer? Check. US exporters being able to export crops? Check. US Aid workers being able to give food to starving people in countries that have huge deposits of rare earth materials? Check. US intelligence apparatus having advanced knowledge of developing situations in strategically important countries? Check. US Aid workers being able deliver tremendous goodwill to countries that China or Russia would love to have their tentacles in? Check. Everyone's happy, everyone makes money, everyone eats. Yet Donald Trump and Elon Musk don't like it, so away it goes. And there's no adult in the room to say "no, you're not cutting it, here's why".
- ZeroGravitas 5mo agoMusk claimed that USAID was a CIA front as part of his rationale to gut it. A very strange thing for a defense contractor to say out loud.
- jonnybgood 5mo agoWhich US bases were destroyed?
- AshamedBadger56 5mo agohttps://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/2026/05/06/iran-us-bases-satellite-images/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/2026/05/06/ira... https://archive.is/fR8Do https://archive.is/fR8Do
- jonnybgood 5mo agoTaking damage does not mean destroyed.
- khriss 5mo agoAhh, so you mean the bases are fully functional and all personnel are back there?
- senordevnyc 5mo agoNo one said that.
- phicoh 5mo agoThe situation in Europe is even more crazy. The US needs the bases in Europe to project power in the Middle East. If every country in Europe would ask the US to leave then the US would have a very serious issue projecting power around the world. The US bases are also pretty expensive to set up. Lots of logistic support has to be in place to let those bases function. That require a lot of support from the host country. Normally, you would expect the US to be friendly with the host countries, but that seems lost on the current administration. What is really wrong is that it is known that russia is fighting in Ukraine with drones designed in Iran. And we have seen how hard it is for US designed weapons to deal with those drones. To the point that a lot of development is happening in Ukraine to deal with this problem. By attacking Iran, the US has shown the world that Ukraine is the weapon supplier of choice against future drone wars.
- kdheiwns 5mo agoYeah, the US is trying to peddle massive missiles that individually cost as much as the entire defense budget for some small nations, as well as large boats that are just giant sitting ducks. Ukraine is showing that cheap drones are the best defensive asset to have and are currently difficult to counter. China is always flaunting their drone shows, and there's no doubt they've got a defensive/offensive fleet of them ready to go and the US seems to be making zero efforts at making any sort of defense against them. There's been plenty of time to learn from Ukraine and the US military industrial complex is just twiddling their thumbs and sucking up money for more of last century's tech
- Al-Khwarizmi 5mo agoI'm not sure if people are even worried anymore. European here (from Spain), and the overwhelming majority of people I know are hoping for the removal of the bases. They are worried, yes... worried that it's just grandstanding and it's not really going to get done (which is likely, because those bases have always been there mainly for the benefit of the US).
- za3faran 5mo agoDon't forget that US army members stayed at hotels in those same countries while Iran was attacking the US bases there. Human shields much?