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What does one do with more than 100 US troops, are they just guarding embassies or do they have real jobs, I can't imagine that that would be much of a fighting force
Liasons, training, intelligence missions, etc.
Probably just helping to train and run communications/admin.
Logistics, mostly.
I'm curious why there are no bases set up in France
Thanks to Charles de Gaulle!
With the onset of the Cold War and the perceived threat of invasion from the Soviet Union and the countries of the eastern bloc, the United States, Canada and a number of western European countries set up the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) to co-ordinate a military response to any possible attack. France played a key role during the early days of the organisation, providing a large military contingent and agreeing – after much soul-searching – to the participation of West German forces. But after his election in 1958 Charles de Gaulle took the view that the organisation was too dominated by the U.S. and UK, and that with its problems in Vietnam, America would not fulfil its promise to defend Europe in the event of a Russian invasion. De Gaulle demanded political parity with Britain and America in NATO, and for its geographic coverage to be extended to include French territories abroad, including Algeria, then experiencing civil war. This was not forthcoming, and so in March 1959 France, citing the need for it to maintain its own independent military strategy, withdrew its Mediterranean fleet from NATO, and a few months later de Gaulle demanded the removal of all U.S. nuclear weapons from French territory.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=luzAoQUM8Kg
I'm surprised he said that in 1958. The French were just recently out of Vietnam themselves and America didn't commit many troops to going there until 1963 or 1964
The actual pulling out occurred in 1966 I believe.
The French pulling out? I think more like 1956, or thereabouts.
France withdrew from NATO's command structure and "expelled" foreign troops as a decision by De Gaulle in 1966 in an idea to pursue the more independent foreign policy he felt fit of France as a great power, and also for the possibility to sign a desperate peace with the USSR and out of protest for Anglo-American dominance of the alliance. en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/NATO#French_withdrawal
Surprised we don't at least have use of military bases in Taiwan
Makes sense really. Setting up a base there would be way, way too provocative towards China. As long as there is no foreign base there, China can continue to acquiesce to the status quo. Put a base there, and you force China to actually follow up its half-hearted rhetoric with action, something China, Taiwan, and the US do not want. We all make too much money off each other to risk it all in an actual shooting war.
Not to mention that such a base would probably be too much of risk in the tactical sense now anyway, with China's improved military capabilities. China still can't project power long range, but they learned their lesson in 1996, and can now credibly deny access to Chinese waters to the US Navy. That would make such a base isolated and untenable.
Yeah I guess it would definitely be too provocative. I was gonna ask why the US didn't do it a lot earlier when China wouldn't have had the naval or air power to do anything at all about it, but then I remembered that Taiwan was a lot less legitimate in the eyes of the world 40 years ago
Taiwan was more legitimate 40 years ago actually. Most of the West recognized the ROC as the Chinese Government. People used to throw around the term "free China" as opposed to the PRC (despite the fact that Chiang Kai-Shek was just as brutal dictator as Mao was, albeit a smarter one than Mao who didn't squander his nation over flawed ideas about how industrialization works). Nowadays, the US recognizes the PRC as the legitimate Chinese government and has no official relations with the ROC, though we do still sell weapons to Taiwan.
Yeah I should just shut up
Why are the Faroes coloured? There are no US troops here, and no use of military facilities either.
The only sort of reasonably explanation would be the use of information from an old Nato radar station(run entirely by the Danish) which is now only used for civilian airtrafic for quite some years.
Are there any foreign bases on US soil? I'm guessing not, but it would seem only fair.
There are no foreign bases in the US, but there are a few shared bases. As stated, there's NORAD split between the US and Canada. Germany also uses two US air bases for training, Holloman and Fort Bliss.
We also train many foreign soldiers on US soil. The School of the Americas in Georgia is an infamous example, as many of its graduates have gone on to commit human rights abuses in Latin America.
There's also Euro-Nato jet pilot training at Sheppard AFB, TX. Many Nato allied students and instructors conduct primary pilot training there.
NORAD is joint US/Canadian command.
I demand military base in Alaska for Estonian army and navy. We need to secure our back.
There are no fully foreign bases, but NORAD is joint US-Canadian, and numerous foreign nations send troops to various bases for training, exercises, and other joint operations.
Empire of bases, indeed.
The sun never sets.
I feel many of these constitute useless military spending.
Sure, why not have military bases in Spain, cause it's close to north Africa and the Mediterranean in case of difficulties in North Africa, but in that case, the base(s) in Portugal seems pretty much useless. It also seems useless to me for the US to have bases in Iceland, the UK, Belgium.
edit : apparently the base in Iceland was removed.
The bases in Iceland especially were to establish control over the GIUK Gap: the relatively small openings between Greenland and Iceland, Iceland and the UK, and the UK and Mainland Europe. If you control the GIUK gap, you can control access to the oceans of the world from ports that reach the North Sea, including--crucially for the time period--the Russian ports of St. Petersburg, Murmansk, and Archangelsk.
Also, Belgium is where SHAPE (Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe, i.e. NATO forces in Europe) is located. Obviously the US will have a lot of troops at NATO's European HQ.
Also (unofficially) there are nuclear weapons stored in Belgium, as in the Netherlands, Span, Italy and Turkey.
Not so much. It's important to have as many widely placed bases as possible in order to provide maximum flexibility in deployment of forces.
Sure, but for example considering the US has bases in Germany, and that Western Europe is not a threat, and is in no threat in any foreseeable future, I wouldn't see the need for having bases in Belgium.
Someone else here held the argument that headquarters of NATO are situated in Belgium, so i guess that's an OK reason to have a base there, but you see my initial point, which to me also stands for Portugal for example.
The base in Portugal is in the Azores, not mainland Portugal, which I think is an important strategic point as it's in the middle of the Atlantic. Anyway, the number of soldiers there is getting reduced to 300 which is a pain for the inhabitants of Terceira Island as most of their income comes from that base. I think China was considering taking over from the US.
I don't think the US is allowed into Kazakhstan anymore. My memory is that they had leased one airbase, but due to Russian pressure the Kazakhstan government allowed the lease to expire. Caused a bit of a stir at the time, if I'm remembering correctly. Someone correct me if I'm wrong though.
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China is about 1/8 of surrounded...
By a few thousands scattered troops? Super scary.
Look at Iran.