One of the comments made following Trump’s decision to relocate some 12,000 troops from Germany was made by retired Admiral James (‘Zorba’) Stavridis, who in 2009-2013 was U.S. Supreme Allied Commander Europe (the military commander of Nato). He declared that the action, among other things, “hurts NATO solidarity and is a gift to Putin.” This…
The United States has always regarded itself as the “exceptional “nation. That view may in many circumstances be relatively benign. It becomes less so when it is used as a justification for treating other countries as being less significant in the overall order of things. It is even less justifiable when that exceptionalism is taken…
The continued presence of tens of thousands of American military personnel in Europe seventy-five years after the end of the Second World War is rarely questioned either by politicians or the mainstream media. Currently there is little recollection of how, after the war ended, soldiers from Britain, France, the U.S. and the Soviet Union occupied…
One noisy theme in the Donald Trump Disruption Show in an otherwise chaotic assemblage of messages has remained fairly constant: winding back US troop commitments. The US has fought its complement of wars, bloodied and bloodying. Time to up stakes and head home. It was a message that sold in 2016 across the aisles of…
On July 26th, Germany’s Die Welt (The World) Sunday newspaper headlined “USA threatens German Nord Stream 2 contractors” and reported that, “The construction of the Russian Nord Stream 2 pipeline has long been a thorn in the US’s side. Now they are increasing the pressure on German and European companies involved in the project —…
Who knew the Europeans really missed the Stanley Cup playoffs that much? For those that don’t like hockey, in the playoffs, games go until someone finally wins. And it doesn’t matter how long it takes. They can be grueling affairs with games going into triple and quadruple overtime, with players playing the equivalent of more…
