Over 230,000 US troops stationed in 130 countries around the world

Maciamo said:
I don't know why this idea that Japan is weak militarily because it doesn't have an offensive army is so persistent. We have discussed this in other threads (eg this one and Japan's defence budget is officially US$39,5 billion, which is the 4th largest in the world after the US (US$276 bn), China ($55,9 bn) and France ($46 bn). Source from the CIA World Factbook. In compaarison even South Korea ($14,5 bn) and especially North Korea ($5 bn) look ridiculous. Both combined have barely half Japan's military budget.
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This is a misleading statement. Japan's defense budget is so high because they help to offset the cost of housing the American troops stationed in their country! Basically they are paying for protection. This is not the amount of money that they spend on their own Armies. I suspect (though I would need to do more research) that this budget also includes monies paid to Japanese civilian employees that work directly in support of the US military. :?
 
Personally if I was a simple man I'd stay screw the rest of the world, and bring them all back home to we can be an isolated country like Japan, but then I'm not a simple man and I understand the allied responsibilities we have in other nations.

Doc :wave:
 
Maciamo said:
After discussing the presence of US troops in Japan and whether it is justified or not, some Japanese asked me how Europeans saw the presence of US trrops in Europe, and if there were similar problems as in Japan (rapes, accidents, other crimes). I admit that I never hear of US troops in Europe, and they do not seem to cause any trouble. There aren't protests like in Japan for them to leave, eventhough most Europeans do not support America's current imperialist policy.

Searching a bit the Web, I found that there are some 117,000 US soldiers stationed in Europe, compared to only 45,000 in Japan and 37,500 in South Korea. Among these, 75,600 were stationed in Germany, 13,300 in Italy (mostly Navy), 12,000 in Britain (mostly Air Force), 2000 in Spain (Navy), 1,800 in Turkey (Air Force), 1,750 in Iceland (Air Force), 1,000 in the Azores (i.e. Portugal), and some other minor bases in the Netherlands and Belgium. (Sources). Click here for a map of US bases in Europe or here for Korea and Japan although some are missing, like Iwakuni.


I wonder why they are keeping so many troops in Europe, as the Cold War is over. I also wonder what locals, especially in Germany since that is were the largest part is stationed, think about them.

There are US has in total 230,000 troops stationed abroad, excluding 145,000 troops deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan, for a total of 760 bases in 130 countries. The US army counts about 4 million uniformed personnel if we include those in the USA.
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Okay, I just lost my breakfast over that. GET ME OUTTA AMERICA NOW PLEASE!!!! Why can't we just stay at home and mind our own business?! Like I said on another topic, if other nations had troops stationed here there'd be an uproar. Oh, but it's totally fine for us to station troops overseas? My eye it is! This makes me so !@#$ing mad. What is wrong with this nation?! No really I wanna know! Just who do we think we are?!
And I'm not stupid I know their are SOME foriegn troops based here, at least I heard that somewhere, but most Americans actually don't know about it and it's not nearly THAT ^ many.

EDIT: And as you can tell this is a BIT of a hot button topic for me. Maybe I shouldn't be posting in these sections...
 
meme9898 said:
the problem is that america and co. after ww2 decided to forbid japan from having an army (stated in its constitution in one way or another)... this means, that if America leaves, then well, Japan is more or less up for grabs, and someone can invade them since they are illequiped to deal with the threat. They could change the constitution to allow an army, but the Japanese public doesn't want this so that wont happen meaning America must stay... I just see it as a contract: since Japan doesnt want an army, it needs protection, who better than america?
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I can think of a few :eek:kashii:
 
Tell me about it :eek:kashii:
 
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