Any decision to pull American military troops out of Germany should be a matter for the entire NATO alliance and not merely an issue only between the two countries, Germany’s defense minister said Wednesday.
President Trump, who has long complained about Germany’s low defense spending totals, rocked the alliance last week confirming leaked reports of a major drawdown of about a third of the American troops in Germany — with alerting NATO or the government of German Chancellor Angela Merkel in advance.
Mr. Trump confirmed the withdrawals — and that some U.S. troops will “probably” go to Poland — at a White House press conference Wednesday alongside Polish President Andrzej Duda. He again criticized Germany — a prime logistical hub for the Pentagon in Europe and the Middle East — for what he said was a policy of making energy deals with Russia while not paying its full share to NATO.
But German Defense Minister Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, in a video conference hosted by the Atlantic Council on Wednesday, suggested strongly such a major disruption required a broader debate.
“We are not talking about a bilateral, German-American matter,” Ms. Kramp-Karrenbauer, a close ally of Ms. Merkel, said. “We are talking about the redeployment of troops within an alliance.”
About 10,000 of the estimated 34,000-plus U.S. troops — and their families — could be affected by the move.
Aside from the abrupt way in which the drawdown was announced, many inside the NATO alliance have warned the move could send the wrong signal to Russia, which has made a series of aggressive moves along NATO’s eastern borders in recent years.
Ms. Kramp-Karrenbauer said the 2% of GDP defense spending benchmark that President Trump repeatedly cites isn’t the best way to gauge a country’s support for the NATO alliance. Germany currently spends barely over 1% of GDP on its military.
“If we were to hit another recession, we could get to 2% much quicker but not have built up the capabilities that we actually need,” she said.
Mr. Trump, by contrast, said Wednesday that the idea of more U.S. troops in Poland, and closer to Russia’s border, would send a “strong signal” to the Kremlin.
Pentagon officials are reportedly scrambling to put meat on the bones of Mr. Trump’s announcement. A senior Trump administration official told The Associated Press that it was premature to predict when the moves might happen.
Pentagon officials said they are working with U.S. European Command to hammer out options.
Drastically reducing the number of American military personnel in Germany from about 35,000 to 25,000 will provide military officials a number of difficult logistic hurdles to cross.
With the collapse of the Soviet Union, the U.S. troops in Germany have a focus more on collective defense than defending Germany from an invasion. For example, Mrs. Kramp-Karrenbauer noted Ramstein Air Base as a major transport hub for U.S. military operations in Afghanistan and Iraq and the Army hospital in Landstuhl cares for U.S. and allied troops wounded in battle.
“NATO is not a trade organization. Security is not a commodity,” she said.
While NATO’s roots may be based on the Cold War, Ms. Kramp-Karrenbauer argued that a resurgent and aggressive Russia is proof why a strong regional defense in Europe is needed, she said.
“Russia has no respect for the right of self-determination of other countries,” Ms. Kramp-Karrenbauer said. “It is important that NATO and the NATO partners stand visibly united. It is important that we stick to this treaty that we’ve agreed to.”
She said she was reassured after a conversation with U.S. Secretary of Defense Mark Esper at last week’s NATO defense ministers meeting.
“He said very clearly that the strong focus on the transatlantic bond and the connection to Europe needs to be maintained,” the German minister said. “That is a very important point to us.”
• Mike Glenn can be reached at mglenn@washingtontimes.com.
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