United States Defense Thread

swerve said:

So, Hegseth orders the withdrawal of US troops from a secure, well-equipped base which allows rapid deployment to the Middle East & North Africa, out of spite.

Click to expand...

KipPotapych said:

This is a big deal and where a lot of problmes currently come from:

View attachment 54667

While the cuts to the US State Department are… one can really use the word catastrophic and it wouldn’t be a hyperbole. Diplomats do not just appear out of nowhere, it is people that evolve and grow and mature over the course of their careers; they learn, they adapt, they make connections, they develop trust that makes dealing possible. They have knowledge of the trade, they know people in the places they work in as they usually spend quite a bit of time (as in years, often decades) in the regions they have expertise and (usually personal) interest in. They pass this accumulated knowledge and experience to the next generation of diplomats, who begin their own growth under their wings, etc. This new generation has to have interest and trust in the government and the system to choose public service in the first place. Of course, they need to know that there is a place for them there to begin with, that there is a demand for their knowledge, expertise, and dedication, which there currently isn’t and looks like it was limited for a while now. Like Bill Burns said in the Foreign Affairs interview I recently cited in the Middle East thread, you have to have conditions for the people who drift off to the private sector to come back when needed or if they so desire. It ain’t there. This is the soft power that the US has been shedding and, again, it is not something one can just get back in short order.

Bill Clinton’s years saw a big jump and understandably so: collapse of the Soviet Union, unification of Europe, etc, all events requiring serious involvement, projection of the American power and interests via simple diplomacy and so on. As the world instability increased in the past 1.5 or so decades and when the diplomacy became urgent again, they shed these people away instead of maintaining the core and transitioning to the next generation of professionals. For instance, I know for a fact that a lot of Russia (which is my personal interest) experts have been retiring or transitioned into academia and are not far from the retirement age anyway. These are the people who saw the end of the Soviet Union (the 80’s), followed by the rise of Russia and the rest of the post-Soviet space, etc. There are not many that can take over and it is not something that can be outsourced. Surely the same is true everywhere else. And it is quite obvious today more than ever. Case in point:

View attachment 54668

“They use the same team actors across all foreign policy tracks”. This is bizarre! While Rubio, the main diplomat, has five jobs (no idea how many, five is just a random number), some of which have vague or no relation to his duty, we have Witkoff and Kushner negotiating the most complex multiple issues America has faced in a while. Neither belongs anywhere near the State Department or the external processes to begin with. This is completely nuts. And that black in the chart above in this current administration is a big problem. I have no doubt it looks the same for the internal governance as well, but that is beyond the geopolitical implications (and outside of the scope of the forum altogether).

To conclude this long post, the very negative effects of this development are problematic and will remain so in the long term. It is questionable if the US will ever be able to rebuild its stance even in the free world. To be fair, most of the free world, us including, acts like a complete joke as well. Sad, really. I can reason the loss of faith in international institutions, but the loss of faith in diplomacy as an instrument is more troublesome and leads to… well, basically what we are facing today and worse, which may be just behind the corner. It is probably clear that there will be no changes in this respect to the end of this administration, but any future administration will have to implement some drastic changes to salvage what is salvageable and start rebuilding, while facing the opponent, being China, who understands the trade better than most or anyone else today. It’s a huge challenge.

Click to expand...

FormerDirtDart said:

Reporting announces that Department of Defense has directed the withdrawal of 5000 US troops from Germany.
Defense News has reported that a Brigade Combat Team will be withdrawn.
To me this suggests 2nd Cav Rgt (SBCT), as the other european based BCT is the 173rd Abn, which while having units based in Germany is headquartered in Italy

Hegseth orders 5,000 US troops to withdraw from Germany - Breaking Defense

“This decision follows a thorough review of the Department’s force posture in Europe and is in recognition of theater requirements and conditions on the ground,” Chief Pentagon Spokesman Sean Parnell wrote in a brief statement.

breakingdefense.com

Click to expand...

US Army abruptly cancels deployment of 4,000 soldiers to Poland

The Army has abruptly halted a planned deployment to Poland, bringing U.S. personnel numbers in Europe to pre-2022 levels — before Russia invaded Ukraine.

www.armytimes.com