COMMENT With the US administration's tendency towards high-flown terminology about "military transformation" and the "usability of forces", it is easy to miss the historic import of yesterday's announcement by President George W. Bush that the US will reduce its troop presence in bases overseas by 70,000 soldiers - about one third - by the end of the decade.
To be sure, it is hard to argue with the logic of the move, particularly in Europe, where America and its Nato allies have not faced a threat from across the Fulda Gap for almost a generation. Without Soviet tanks to repel, it makes little sense to keep two of the US army's 10 armoured divisions stationed in the Bavarian forests. Yet the decision marks the end of an era in which the world's most war-torn continent was finally pacified with the help of a benign foreign army.
