time for some european politics

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Good point.

As I see it, there are divergent schools of thought in America on that score.  Some prefer that we force the issue, in a more isolationist move vis a vis Europe proper, that we pull out of Europe and make it a matter of "you deal with your problems, ciao!"  The unrealistic part of that is the logistic support we have built in Europe over 50 years: warehouses, airfields, training facilities, hospitals, dockyard improvements.  Those are all strategic logistics facilities that we can ill afford to do without in order to be able to act in the Eastern Med.

The other point of view is more internationalist, that the more engaged we are, the more places where we underwrite security agreements, the less likely there is to be a flare up.  That requires a considerably larger military presence than we can at the moment afford, see my GDP comment, and it relies on both image and credibility.  If someone believes that we shoot when "line X' is crossed, then deterrent security can work.  (Article V of the NATO treaty is explicit in that regard.)  If we behave more like the UN, and don't shoot no matter what line is crossed, we waste our money and men on such a deterrent posture. 

The war in Iraq fits neither of those models, being an ambitious bit of preemption, the type of operation we normally only used in small, local (South and Latin American) countries previously.  The way it looks now, the US is willing to sacrifice a lot more to shore up Israeli security than security in some other places.  The Middle East's stability as seen through Washington's eyes is still bound to Israeli security.  Credit AIP and other Jewish-Israeli based lobby groups for their efforts over the past 55 years.  What could you do with 5 billion per year in aid and unrepaid loans?

I believe we should pull our troops out of Europe -- North of the Alps -- entirely, leaving small logistic detachments in a few places with local government agreements.  We should stay, where the local governments still agree, in the Southern Region: that is where European Security and American Security now intersect.

As to Asia, that is a whole different ball game, and needs far more of our effort than Europe does: Asia is the future.

Americans who object to Europe as a whole being "stronger" are paternalists and, IMO, trying to treat Europe like an immature child.  Europe is hardly that, and is not the tinder box it was in 1900.  The EU has the power to act collectively with greater, positive effect than has been recently shown, if the political will grows to do so.

Occhi
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That was remarkably insightful. Thank you. I have been combing through the news and you summed it up better then most other writers, who seem to choke on their own words.