Don't forget that your defense needs are covered by the USA!
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.
The US uses most of the difference for it's imperialist agenda (as in waging offensive wars well outside its borders) and simply shoveling money to it's military-industrial complex, not defense.
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.)
That's two decades ago. The soviets are history. They are gone. Now most US troops left Germany. The rest which are here are needed to keep the US empire (central command for europe, central command for africa, hospitals, logistics, ...). Even then Germany paid a lot of money for defense, we even paid the US for defense. Germany was heavily armed and was on the front line of the cold war conflict with huge military presences and installations.
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:
If you have a look at the military expenditure database you will see that Germany has the 7th largest military spendings in the world. Almost the same amount as Russia. I think that the German defense needs are covered enough even without the USA.
Much of the German military is a social welfare program (more so than the US); national service is traditional and keeps the unemployment figures down, but serves very little defense purpose.
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.