BERLIN
(AP) — After more than a year of thinly-veiled threats to start pulling
U.S. troops out of Germany unless Berlin increases its defense
spending, President Donald Trump appears to be proceeding with a
hardball approach, planning to cut the U.S. military contingent by more
than 25%.
About 34,500
American troops are stationed in Germany — 50,000 including civilian
Department of Defense employees — and the plan Trump reportedly signed
off on last week envisions reducing active-duty personnel to 25,000 by
September, with further cuts possible.
But as details
of the still-unannounced plan trickle out, there’s growing concerns it
will do more to harm the U.S.’s own global military readiness and the
NATO alliance than punish Germany.
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The decision
was not discussed with Germany or other NATO members, and Congress was
not officially informed — prompting a letter from 22 Republican members
of the House Armed Services Committee urging a rethink.
“The threats
posed by Russia have not lessened, and we believe that signs of a
weakened U.S. commitment to NATO will encourage further Russian
aggression and opportunism,” Rep. Mac Thornberry of Texas wrote in a
letter to Trump with his colleagues. Sen. Jack Reed, the ranking
Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee, slammed Trump’s move as
“another favor” to Russian President Vladimir Putin.
But Richard
Grenell, who resigned as U.S. ambassador to Germany two weeks ago, told
Germany’s Bild newspaper that “nobody should be surprised that Donald
Trump is withdrawing troops.”
Grenell, who
declined to comment for this article, said he and others had been
pushing for Germany to increase its defense spending and had talked
about troop withdrawals since last summer.
“Donald Trump
was very clear we want to bring troops home,” he said, adding: “there’s
still going to be 25,000 American troops in Germany.”
The suggestion
that removing troops will punish Germany, however, overlooks the fact
that American troops are no longer primarily there for the country’s
defense, said retired Lt. Gen. Ben Hodges, who commanded U.S. Army
Europe from 2014 until 2017.
Gone are the
days when hundreds of thousands of American troops were ready to fight
in the streets of Berlin or rush into the strategic Fulda Gap, through
which Soviet armor was poised to push into West Germany during the Cold
War.
“The troops
and capabilities that the U.S. has deployed in Europe are not there to
specifically defend Germany, they are part of our contribution to
overall collective stability and security in Europe,” said Hodges, now a
strategic expert with the Center for European Policy Analysis, a
Washington-based institute.
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American
facilities include Ramstein Air Base, a critical hub for operations in
the Mideast and Africa and headquarters to the U.S. Air Forces in Europe
and Africa; the Landstuhl Regional Medical Center, which has saved the
lives of countless Americans wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan; and the
Stuttgart headquarters of both the U.S. European Command and the U.S.
Africa Command. There’s also the Wiesbaden headquarters of U.S. Army
Europe, the Spangdahlem F-16 fighter base and the Grafenwoehr Training
Area, NATO’s largest training facility in Europe.
Hodges said the facilities are a critical part of America’s global military footprint.
“What’s lost
in all this is the benefit to the United States of having forward
deployed capabilities that we can use not only for deterrence ... but
for employment elsewhere,” he said. “The base in Ramstein is not there
for the U.S. to defend Europe. It’s there as a forward base for us to be
able to fly into Africa, the Middle East.”
Trump
indicated last summer that he was thinking of moving some troops from
Germany to Poland, telling Poland’s President Andrzej Duda during an
Oval Office meeting: “Germany is not living up to what they’re supposed
to be doing with respect to NATO, and Poland is.”
Duda has been
trying to woo more American forces, even suggesting Poland would
contribute over $2 billion to create a permanent U.S. base — which he
said could be named “Fort Trump.” In the current plan, at least some
Germany-based troops are expected to be shifted to Poland.
Following
Trump’s comments last June, U.S. Ambassador to Poland Georgette
Mosbacher tweeted Aug. 8 that “Poland meets its 2% of GDP spending
obligation towards NATO. Germany does not. We would welcome American
troops in Germany to come to Poland.”
Grenell then
tweeted: “it is offensive to assume that the U.S. taxpayers will
continue to pay for more than 50,000 Americans in #Germany, but the
Germans get to spend their surplus on #domestic programs.”
In response,
Chancellor Angela Merkel reiterated Germany’s commitment to “work
toward” the 2% NATO defense spending benchmark — a goal it hopes to meet
in 2031.
“There is a
lot invested here, and I think that we, in very friendly talks, will
naturally always continue to heartily welcome these American soldiers,
and there are also good reasons for them to be stationed here,” she
said.
NATO members
agreed at a 2014 summit to “aim to move toward” spending 2% of GDP on
defense. Since then, the year Russia annexed the Crimean Peninsula,
overall NATO defense spending has grown annually.
Since his
election in 2016, Trump has pushed for the 2% as a hard target, and
repeatedly singled out Germany as a major offender, though many others
are also below the goal.
NATO figures
put Germany’s estimated defense spending for 2019 at 1.4%, and Poland’s
at 2%. In dollar terms, however, Germany committed nearly $54 billion
last year — NATO’s third-largest budget after the U.S. and Britain —
while Poland spent slightly less than $12 billion.
Germany does
need to spend more, Hodges said, but U.S. and NATO interests would be
better served if Washington pushed Berlin to spend on broader military
needs, like transportation infrastructure, cyber protection and air
defense, that would be easier for Merkel’s government to justify to a
largely pacifist population.
“We don’t need
more German tanks, we need more German trains,” he said. “Why not be a
little bit more strategic and think about what the alliance really needs
from Germany?”
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