It's obvious to people without extreme anti-American bias.

Also, maybe don't throw out terms like "strawman" when you bizarrely transfigured my innocuous comment:

> The 30,000 US troops stationed in Germany and the existence of NATO are significant factors in European countries spending so little on defense.

into:

> This is a total fallacy - those troops being stationed in Germany does not mean Germany would station 30k of their own should the US troops leave.

edit - It should be clear to anyone reasonable that the way you interpreted my original post evinces anti-American bias. What you don't seem to understand is that US interests and Germany interests have significant overlap. The idea that Germany doesn't benefit from pax Americana is absurd.

That doesn't mean that the US always uses its power responsibility, it just means that things are more complicated than the caricature of US foreign policy that often shows up on this website.