Don't agree. Nuclear power's overwhelming lethality is actually a very destabilizing force in the small corners of the world. It is actually stabilizing at the MAD level. The destabilization inherent in the arms races in places like Kashmir absolutely make conventional force an absolute necessity.
For diplomacy purposes, the nuclear option was great for Eisenhower's approach to the rest of the world, but it's simply no longer particularly effective because most know it's a weapon of last, or nearly last, resort. The practicality of using nukes to persuade simply no longer exists. Moving forces to the doorstep is absolutely persuasive. With the right intent, they're even better.
Europe is simply offloading the expense to the US as a strategic and financial reality. We need the staging base should the Red Horde ever come through Fulda. We will not let that eventuality come to pass. I'm of the mind that we should begin making clear that we will, given that we can use spots in the ME for the same purpose and they have more strategic advantage to us. Given that, I think you'll see over the course of the next few decades that we begin to offload defense of Europe onto Europe, as they simply aren't the center of the universe as they believe.
