Does Germany, Italy, and Japan have the option to EVER tell us our soldiers must leave there?

[NNN0LHI]

I know there are treaties and such about this since WW II and some got better deals than others, but do any of these countries ever have the option to tell us to leave? Or were these treaties written into perpetuity?

Don

[benddem]

1. no

we wrote the treaties. They can ask. Okinawa has been demanding we leave for as long as I remember.

[tammywammy]

2. And a few years ago, when the US started talking about

closing some bases in Germany, Germans got upset. Many towns need the soldiers there spending money, economically wise.

[1932]

4. That's not exactly the case. I just read Nemesis by Chalmers Johnson

and it's a little more complicated than that.

Chalmers suggests that the US is pulling out of Germany as punishment for Schroeder not cooperating with Bush, and the communities in which the reductions will happen might be worried about the economies changing. However, Germans, generally do not like having foreign troops in their country. The discussion is at pages 153-154.

[hfojvt]

3. I think Bush threatened to leave Germany a few years ago

It would hurt some of their local economies just as bad as BRAC does to some cities here. Germany would not have wanted us to leave, probably when the Russians were still a major threat. I am not sure how they feel now.

[1932]

5. Oskar Lafontaine, one of Germany's most charismatic politicians, according to Chalmers Johnson

says that Germany is not a sovereign nation so long as the US has military bases in Germany.