Remind me, why the country an ocean away has it's troops in these countries?
And while we are it, can you explain why the country with only two countries on it's borders (one is allied, the other one is clearly not hostile) has a standing Army (not navy, not air force) of 460k+ active personnel?
Because they asked, because WW2 & NATO, because of the USSR and now Russia. If they weren't there, what might Russia have tried before 2022?
> And while we are it
Because of the Russia, China, NK, Iran. Who's going to stop them from attacking their neighbors?
I was saying that, whatever your thoughts about US military policy, its deployment patterns are not, in fact, anything like what Russia did in late 2021/early 2022.
Pointing out that the US has troops in other countries, and a massive military in general, does not address the point.
US doesn't have an army on the Russian border because it's at least an ocean away, so asking 'how many US forces at the Russian border' is naive at bedt and comparing apples to oranges at worst.
You are clearly are separating US from NATO, which is technically correct but absolutely ignores how US sees the world.