Rebalancing America's forces: The downgrading of Europe | The Economist

Well-stated discussion of the very real tensions that still exist in Europe.

It's in America's interest to maintain a viable force in Europe for many reasons, not least of which is to deter friends as well as potential foes from doing something stupid that would, yes, have a very negative effect on the U.S.

It's interesting to see the same people who are worried about the impact of Europe's economic woes totally discard any chance that regional conflicts in Europe would cause the same negative impact.

Yes, U.S. forces are in Europe as part of NATO's collective defense, however, the U.S. forces are also in Europe to defend U.S. interests. The U.S. simply cannot afford for Europe to devolve into the pre-WWI and pre-WWII regional powers chaos. The presence of U.S. forces, and the relationships and partnerships across Europe those forces build, go a long way towards deterring that chaos from happening.