According to former United States general Ben Hodges, the withdrawal of US troops from Europe is only a matter of time. He advises Switzerland to prepare for war.
According to former United States general Ben Hodges, the withdrawal of US troops from Europe is only a matter of time. In an interview with SonntagsBlick, he advises Switzerland to prepare for war.
If anyone is interested in the state of things in Switzerland:
Our defense is in chaos right now. A scandal in our state-owned but public weapons manufacturer just broke a few weeks ago and shortly after the secretary of the departement of defense announced her resignation. We will see if the newly elected one will improve the situation.
The army is generally seen as somewhat of a joke, especially by people who served, which is more than half of all Swiss men. We like to call it a "Pfadiverein" (boy scouts association).
Even with all that, the right wing parties want to give a shitload more money to defense, and cut costs in social spending and foreign aid to compensate. Left of centre the need to improve defense is also accepted, but 1) before the army gets more money, they need to get their shit together and 2) more important than the army itself is integration with the european security Infrastructure (the left parties are also very pro-EU). The centre politicians usually mix blth stances and lean more one or the other way.
Also we still stand to buy fighter jets from the US, and only the left parties are calling to cancel the deal.
Oh, while the US is waging TOTAL WAR against Canada, 3y from now, if anyone think that China-backed-Russia isn't going to be rampaging Europe, they're mindblind/incompetent.
This is THE GREAT FILTER: humankind's species-"puberty".
Grow-up transformation either will be earned, by some remnant of our world's people,
XOR
the galaxy will be silent of our-kind, permanently, by the end of this century, forever.
Natural Selection, it's called, within an Extinction Event, too..
They better start exporting their bountiful electricity! They got so much of it, enough for a good 3 or 4 days of AI questions about how awesome our beautiful leader Mr orange is.
As bad as it sounds, if our European leaders can get their head out of their collective US-aligned asses, it could finally be a push to a more cohesive EU-defence policy that is not dependant on US logistics and firepower.
We have allowed ourselves to be way to complacent for far too long.
Collectively European nations have the economy and technology to build a Military Industrial Complex to rival the US... I hope they truly wake up before it's too late, least the birthplace of western civilization also become it's grave 😢
There are silver linings like this. The good news is that if we fight now, Trump will have destroyed a lot of the institutions (both domestic and foreign) that were holding back real progress. Clears the way to build better ones.
Shoving helos off a carrier deck comes to mind, when we were actually trying to evacuate refugees instead of lowering plane flaps to push off the hangers on. Guess the Taliban has Strykers and MRAPs now just like our cops, yay murica
I'm so ready to never fly or drive to the 51st or 52nd states or Alaska. Alaska and Hawaii and Puerto Rico are the WTF parts of the US. Like how come they are not just independent nations?
Hawaii was an independent nation, until they allowed some US business interests in. Those businessman bolstered by a US Marines contingent + some artillery and a tugboat with a single cannon on it invaded when a new constitution was written by the Queen that would strip the companies of some power and give it to the poor. They imprisoned the queen. After a failed attempt at rescuing her and a "trial" by a hastily set up "US military court" she signed over the country to the US in exchange for the release of her would-be rescuers, who would have been executed. In 1993 the US apologized to Hawaii and acknowledged that the actions had been illegal and a coup d'tat of a legitimate government, and an illegal use of military force. But there were no reparations or offers to return Hawaiians to power.
Many Hawaiians are still pretty vocal that they'd like the US to get the eff out of their country. They are disorganized though and theres a colossal amount of white wealthy that are against making the injustice right in even small ways. Capitalism is insidious and unaccountable. It doesn't balk at murder and uses laws only when it benefits them and ignores them otherwise.
It’s hard to know where to begin with people like this. They are more ideologically unhinged than anyone in the Middle East, more indoctrinated than any communist, more institutionalised than a life sentence prisoner, and more ignorant than a drunken donkey.
I think you've misunderstood. It sounds like you've interpreted the headline to mean that General Hodges is threatening to invade Switzerland. Perhaps you only read the headline and not the actual article.
"The best way to prevent a war is to prepare for it,” said the former commander of the US armed forces in Europe
[...]
The US Department of Defence is currently funding 100,000 soldiers in Europe, said Hodges. For him, it is clear that President Donald Trump will withdraw troops. “The only question is when, and how many soldiers he will withdraw,” said the former general. “According to everything I hear from Washington, Europe is no longer a priority.” Trump sees China as the main opponent of the US.
Hodges is stating the reality that Trump will withdraw US troops from Europe in the future, regardless of how bad an idea that is.
From Trump’s point of view, the US would be paying billions for the defence of Europe, said Hodges. [...] “Incidentally, the US benefits enormously economically from a stable Europe,” he said.
Trump is the kind of moron who only understands short-term profit (especially profit for himself) and doesn't give a shit about long-term international cooperation. Some very bad decisions are going to be made in the near future.
Hodges understands the value of European relationships but also sees the inevitability of what's coming and is trying to make the reality of it clear.