A US Air Force MQ-9 Reaper drone in Germany. (Reuters / Hannibal Hanschke)
Ramstein, Germany, is the hub for America’s global drone war, from North Africa to South Asia.
The overseas hub for America’s “war on terror” is the massive Ramstein Air Base in southwest Germany. Nearly ignored by US media, Ramstein serves crucial functions for drone warfare and much more. It’s the most important Air Force base abroad, operating as a kind of grand central station for airborne war—whether relaying video images of drone targets in Afghanistan to remote pilots with trigger fingers in Nevada, or airlifting special-ops units on missions to Africa, or transporting munitions for airstrikes in Syria and Iraq. Soaking up billions of taxpayer dollars, Ramstein has scarcely lacked for anything from the home country, other than scrutiny.
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WNU Editor: I guess this is the price that Germany must continue to pay after losing the war 71 years ago.
2 comments:
According to Nick Turse, The US has over 800 bases, positions and stagings outside of US territory. ( up from 272 in 1991).
The entire Rest of the World, including Russia, China, France, Britain, has a total of 30.
I think it is the price the United States pays for "winning" WWII. It gets to defend Germany at a time when the US military would be bard pressed to defrnd the United States should it ve attacked. It seems to be America that is paying the price. For Germany this is a win/win all the way around.
Clearly most of these bases, if not all of them, will need to be closed or turned over to others and the p e rsonnel redeployed. The only question is going to be is this done orderly or disorderly. The next POTUS needs to make this a top priorty.
When evaluating which bases to close, restructure, etc it will be important to avoid the temptation of delving into hysterical Anti-Americanism as tends to happen and nothing gets done. Also, many of these nations are not going to want US to leave for various reasons. Where and when possible we should help these nations with the transition but it needs to be known our security is paramount and this nedds to be made clear.
For the record, the places I would start with would be removing all support from Eastrrn European nations and move from there to redeployments away from South Korea and Japan.
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