The reason US troops are in Europe is because it's an safe allied staging ground for operations in the middle east, and because it allows US to maintain a military presence against Russia, with whom relations are still... strained, if not hostile.Connosaurus Rex said:<l<l rewind. What are we exactly argueing now. The fact of US troops in Europe protecting EUROPE( not necessarily Britain) or the fact the USA is in NATOAmnestic said:snip yet again
Similiar reasons put a reason for US troops in Korea and Japan as a US interest.
Regardless, US has yet to actively run into another NATO country and leap to their defense.
However, the converse is a different story. NATO is what required Canada to enter Afganistan once it was determined that the organization responsible for 9/11 was staged there. US was attacked, NATO countries must respond in defense. That's what the NAT in NATO means.
Do not be fooled by patriotic nonsense. US has it's own interests in mind, which is why they are in NATO. Or more accurately, why NATO is a multi-national arm of US interest that dates from the cold war.