Amidst the recriminations over the US decision to withdraw from Afghanistan, some are holding up West Germany, Japan and South Korea as examples of how US Forces stayed for decades and civil societies were successfully rebuilt. I think the comparison fails on its own terms as in none of those states was there a sustained armed insurgency facing either the host nation or US Forces. Some cross-border skirmishes in Korea, for sure, but those were a) inter-state and b) within the capacity of South Korean forces to handle. So the argument that an ongoing presence in Afghanistan should be considered analogous is simply wrong from the start.
I'm interested in developing another counter-argument, and the reason why I'm starting a new post is to avoid sidetracking the Afghanistan thread. Can any of our older Stateside contributors recall when dependents started accompanying US Forces in each of West Germany, Japan and South Korea, and how long it took for the bases to develop into the Americanised towns we see today? It obviously makes a great deal of difference to the long-term sustainability of deployments when they become enjoyable perks of a military career. (Let's not get into the question of whether lengthy unaccompanied deployments were, or are considered a perk!
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Ridiculous that such points should even need to be made, but there are some hysterical people around right now!