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Re:Germany, seeking independence from U.S., pushes cyber sec... by mindslight on Wednesday August 29, 2018 @10:17PM (#17873681)
The presence of US military bases would seem to indicate so...
Re:Germany, seeking independence from U.S., pushes cyber sec... by mirimir on Wednesday August 29, 2018 @10:39PM (#17873752)
Germany was occupied for decades after WWII. However, it's hard to imagine that it's still under US occupation now. I mean, how could something like that remain secret? But on the other hand, how would I know?

And see "We're all living in America" aka "Amerika" by Ramstein <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rr8ljRgcJNM>.

Re:Germany, seeking independence from U.S., pushes cyber sec... by mindslight on Wednesday August 29, 2018 @10:52PM (#17873792)
What needs to remain secret? At a certain level of presence, it's a de facto occupation. Could Germany, as a purportedly sovereign state, decide to start working against US foreign policy goals? Decide their interests were better served by making a pact with Russia and asking the US to leave? Running Microsoft's sieveware seems to be the least of their worries.

I don't have a constructive answer to move towards . I just don't like the present-blindness exceptionalism that keeps the US from just being considered an empire, nor the centralization created by having essentially three sovereigns in the world.

Re:Germany, seeking independence from U.S., pushes cyber sec... by mirimir on Wednesday August 29, 2018 @11:08PM (#17873845)
I agree that it's fundamentally an empire. It basically subsumed the British, French, German, Japanese, etc empires after WWII. I've seen some stuff online which suggests that the US made explicit deals about this with Britain and France, before joining the war. But I'm no historian, and am not qualified to have opinions about that.
Re:Germany, seeking independence from U.S., pushes cyber sec... by hollerith on Thursday August 30, 2018 @12:09AM (#17874028)
>Could Germany, as a purportedly sovereign state, decide . . . their interests were better served by making a pact with Russia and asking the US to leave?

The US certainly imposes its will on the rest of the world in many ways, but you're overestimating its power and its interest in imposing its will on Western Europe.

Like many countries, Germany played both sides during the Cold War: https://www.britannica.com/event/Ostpolitik

My humble opinion is that Germany could have evicted the US military from their territory in the 60s, 70s or 80s at the cost of inviting the Soviets in, but judged (correctly, IMO) that the Soviets would treat them worse than the Americans had and would. After all, the Soviets treated their own citizens very badly. The tariffs that Trump imposed on German exports would've never happened during the Cold War. The US security establishment knew (correctly, IMO) that Germany's allying with the Soviets would've been a disaster for US interests because of the possibility of the alliance eventually reaching economic and military parity with the US. (The security establishment would've mobilized influential Senators and Congresspersons to pressure the President to remove the tariffs, and in the unlikely event that that didn't work, they would've taken their case to the American press and the American public.) Consequently, they treated Germany better than the Germans could reasonably expect the Soviets to treat them.

I believe Germany could evict the US military from their territory today, particularly since now that the Soviet Union has disintegrated, the US security establishment doesn't really want to maintain that military presence. They probably think they're maintaining it mainly as a favor to the Europeans and wish the Europeans would bear more of the cost of their own defense. The Europeans, on the other hand, probably reason (correctly, IMO) that having the protection of Western Europe come mostly from the US has the happy effect of reducing the probability of an arms race and consequent war between two European powers. In other words, my belief is that the US doesn't really want to bear the cost of their military presence in Europe, but has (at least before Trump's presidency) grudgingly done so because that is the most effective means of keeping down the probability of another European war.

(I'm not saying that the Europeans are more warlike than the US is -- they are not -- just that the situations of the European governments are much more precarious than the situation of the US government. The US government does not have to consider attacking another country to prevent that country from attacking it first.)

Re:Germany, seeking independence from U.S., pushes cyber sec... by mirimir on Thursday August 30, 2018 @12:55AM (#17874187)
> The Europeans, on the other hand, probably reason (correctly, IMO) that having the protection of Western Europe come mostly from the US has the happy effect of reducing the probability of an arms race and consequent war between two European powers.

That's one of the selling points for "soft" empires. Even the Mongols played it that way. After the unpleasantness of invasion, anyway.

Re:Germany, seeking independence from U.S., pushes cyber sec... by whyever on Thursday August 30, 2018 @06:59AM (#17875650)
> the US security establishment doesn't really want to maintain that military presence.

The Pentagon confirmed this year that they intend to modernize the nuclear weapons stationed in Germany starting in 2021. This does not sound like they don't want to maintain a military presence.

Re:Germany, seeking independence from U.S., pushes cyber sec... by Fnoord on Thursday August 30, 2018 @03:19AM (#17874681)
You say Ramstein [sic] I say Laibach. Laibach - NATO [1] and Laibach - Opus Dei (Life is Life) [2]. Brilliant remixes. They're also a steal live [3].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NATO_(album)

[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LB9lObWclFQ

[3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g4r_KhNakeM

Re:Germany, seeking independence from U.S., pushes cyber sec... by mirimir on Thursday August 30, 2018 @05:01AM (#17875150)
Oops, dropped an "m" there. But cool. Such ironic mockery of neo-nazism. I'm reminded of that Black Flag classic, "White Minority", which became very popular among white-power skinheads.

And Turbonegro's "Death From Above", written by some kid from Bosnia. Also that over-the-top hidden track on Party Animals, "My Name is Bojan Milankovic".[0] It's quite the response to music criticism ;)

0) https://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/turbonegro/mynameisbojanmila...

Re:Germany, seeking independence from U.S., pushes cyber sec... by ur-whale on Thursday August 30, 2018 @07:23AM (#17875756)
Acid test: how many German military bases in the US?

[edit]: Rammstein is one of my all-time favourite band.

Re:Germany, seeking independence from U.S., pushes cyber sec... by ionised on Thursday August 30, 2018 @04:36AM (#17875030)
It has military bases and surveillance systems there so I'd say yes.

I'd also wager that if they tried to force the US to leave, the US would respond with aggression, most likely economically.