Sparks: US to withdraw thousands of troops from Germany

The habits of the heart that bind a republic to its allies are frayed long before the formal orders for withdrawal are ever issued.

Why do millions consent to the protection of a distant power when their own arithmetic of security so plainly favors self-reliance?

A new directive arrives concerning the redeployment of personnel, which refers you to the prior directive that the new directive has now superseded.

What do we mean by an ally, and does the act of garrisoning troops define the relationship or merely describe one of its symptoms?

Every safe house has its timetable, and the wise conductor knows when to move her passengers before the route is compromised.

The drawing-room conversation about troop levels proceeded with perfect civility, much like a fox discussing the number of hounds with the hunt master.

Those who preach the virtues of patience and deliberation to the aggrieved are often the first to act with impulsive force when their own pride is wounded.

Professional military opinion, like medical opinion, often mistakes its own pride for a principle and calls the result strategy.

From my saddle, I observe the precise logistics of a base closing - the crated machinery, the local merchants counting lost custom.

A change in the position of a force does not alter the underlying geometry of the interests it was meant to secure.

Nothing so clarifies a nation's foreign policy as a perceived slight to its dignity, which is a very expensive commodity to keep in stock.

This redeployment of earthly forces mirrors a celestial disjunction, a humoral imbalance between powers that requires a rebalancing of essences.