Deborah Cole

And there are and have been a lot of business opportunities, a lot of jobs that are stabilized, that are supported by the American military presence.

In fact, they are completely dependent on it.

Yeah, absolutely.

I mean, you know, the Americans kept the Germans from being starved into submission by the Soviet Union.

And so there was an enormous amount of gratitude linked to that.

Then, of course, the Marshall Plan, which pumped billions over the years into rebuilding Germany.

not only economically, but also welcoming it back into the community of nations, West Germany, after the Nazi period that was anything but a given.

But I think then, you know, we get to the heart of the issue here that the Germans saw it as the right thing to do, not only in terms of rebuilding Europe, but also in their own interest in the context of the Cold War.

And that

interest that the United States has by having this military presence here is still very much the case.

That hasn't changed.

So there are about 36,000 soldiers here, and that is a little bit more than half of the U.S.

troops in all of Europe.

But then along with that, you have civilian support staff and, as I mentioned, the families.

So the actual American presence is through that exponentially bigger.

The Americans just in Germany alone have 20 to 40 bases, depending on sort of how you define a military base.

But it is a very large presence.

We talked earlier about Rammstein bases.

And the essential importance that that has as part of NATO, as you were saying earlier, Helen, that it's not only the Americans who use Rammstein, but many, many NATO members.

And it is not only, I think Trump often in the way he speaks about it, puts it in terms that