Posted: Feb 24, 2017 8:28 am
In the second of those podcasts above, Dan Carlin says he would cut back on military spending by, among other measures, expecting the countries with US bases on their soil to pay the costs of those bases, because they are enjoying the benefits of US protection. This strikes me as somewhat silly from a military historian, he seems to be assuming, for example, that the Japanese just love having US bases on Japanese soil, because they see the US as a big protector. It seems to me that expecting Japanese taxpayers to vote to pay for foreign soldiers to maintain military dominance over Japan would lead to a fairly quick exit - I doubt the Japanese see it so clearly as protection, as it may seem to Americans? As a UK citizen, I'm reasonably happy with the current US global military dominance, but there must be more underlying resentment in other parts of the world?