The Pentagon remained mum as German officials scrambled to get details on a reported play by the Trump administration to withdraw more than a quarter of the more than 35,000 U.S. troops stationed in Germany.
The plan sent shock waves through Europe and sparked some bipartisan blowback on Capitol Hill, with critics saying it will weaken NATO, complicate U.S. military operations in the Middle East and beyond, and embolden Russia, which has long chafed at the heavy U.S. military footprint in Europe.
The move would slice about 9,500 troops from current personnel levels, leaving about 25,000 U.S. Air Force, Army and Marine forces in place. It was first reported by The Wall Street Journal late last week, although a senior U.S. official has confirmed the substance of the troop drawdown to The Washington Times.
But officials of the government of German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who has long had a frosty relationship with Mr. Trump, say they have not been given a timetable or rationale for the move, and have not been officially informed it has been decided. Some doubted Mr. Trump would follow through.
“I don’t want to speculate on something for which I have no confirmation,” Defense Minister Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer told a news conference in Berlin on Monday. “The fact is the presence of U.S. troops in Germany serves the entire security of the NATO alliance — so American security too.”
But supporters of Mr. Trump’s move say it fits in with his administration’s larger mission of reducing expensive military commitments abroad and could be used to redistribute U.S. troops to more friendly hosts, such as Poland.
Mr. Trump regularly complains that NATO allies — and wealthy Germany in particular — have failed to meet their promises to boost defense budgets, leaving the U.S. to fill the gaps.
“It’s never been, ’We’re going to take troops out of Europe.’ It’s been very specific about Germany,” said retired Lt. Gen. Spoehr, a military analysts now with The Heritage Foundation.
The reported moved also sparked anger on Capitol Hill, with even Republicans like Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney, a member of the GOP House leadership, lambasting the idea as “dangerously misguided.”
“If the United States abandons allies, withdraws our forces and retreats within our borders, the cause of freedom — on which our nation was founded and our security depends — will be in peril,” Ms. Cheney said in a statement.
While Mr. Trump has kept alive hopes of a better relationship with Russia, many U.S. conservatives said they feared a drawdown in Germany would only encourage the Kremlin to probe for more weaknesses inside the Western military alliance. They noted President Vladimir Putin’s forces still occupy Crimea and arm and encourage Ukrainian separatists, while the Russian Air Force has lately been engaging in a high altitude cat-and-mouse game with U.S. military aircraft.
While the numbers of U.S. military personnel have declined since the Cold War, Germany is still home to several important units — including Ramstein Air Base, headquarters of U.S. Air Forces in Europe; the headquarters for both U.S. European Command and U.S. Africa Command; and the Landstuhl Regional Medical Center that has cared for U.S. military troops injured from the fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan.
NATO reportedly was not consulted on the Pentagon move, but NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg, addressing a Washington teleconference Monday, tried to downplay the tensions.
Mr. Stoltenberg declined to address the reports of an American pullout, but said he is “constantly consulting with the United States, with NATO allies on military posture and presence in Europe.”
He noted that the U.S. military presence has increased across Europe with American forces conducting exercises in Northern Europe, more rotations deploying in Poland and Romania, and a heightened naval presence in Spain.
Many on the German left, who have long agitated for U.S. troops to leave, hailed the decision to withdraw troops, but many of Ms. Merkel’s conservative allies seethed over both the idea and how it has been rolled out.
“This is completely unacceptable, especially since nobody in Washington thought about informing its NATO ally Germany in advance,” Peter Beyer, a member of Ms. Merkel’s conservative governing party, told the Rheinische Post newspaper.
Gen. Spoehr said there was a strong argument for relocating a brigade-sized unit of soldiers in Eastern Europe.
Moving military personnel back to the United States from Europe won’t happen overnight. The military will have to find a home for the returning soldiers along with their families.
“There aren’t a ton of empty barracks in the United States. The troops are going to have to go someplace,” Gen. Spoehr said.
• Mike Glenn can be reached at mglenn@washingtontimes.com.
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