Why the downvote? While Germany has a fine military, its the US that traditionally protected Europe from the Soviets. Germany has the luxury of a 1.4% spending of their GDP, while the US hass 4.8%. That 3% frees up a lot of money for social services.
To not mention this in a comparison between the US and Germany is a glaring omission.
Germany spends enough money to reasonably protect it's own borders, as do most of Germany's other allies. The US overspending on military is insane, and has fuck all to do with "defense".
(Apologies for the over-used terms like "imperialist" and "military-industrial complex", but they seem appropriate in this context.)
The fall of the Berlin wall is now over twenty years ago. Germany has consequently reduced its military. The US has expanded it extensively in the last decade (two wars, etc.).
The number of US military installations is now mostly of FORMER installations:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_Army_inst...