U.S. soldiers set up a Howitzer at Mihail Kogălniceanu Air Base, Romania, May 1, 2025. The idea of moving an Army brigade unit to Poland or another location along NATO’s eastern flank has long appealed to security analysts. (Nathan Arellano Tlaczani/U.S. Army)
STUTTGART, Germany — Top lawmakers over the weekend raised concerns about a Pentagon plan to pull 5,000 troops from Germany, saying that if such a move happens those forces should be relocated to a more strategic position along NATO’s eastern flank.
Sen. Roger Wicker, R-Miss., the powerful chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, and his House counterpart, Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Ala., issued a joint statement Saturday that said the security situation in Europe was too volatile to pull the Army’s lone brigade in Germany out of Europe entirely.
“Rather than withdrawing forces from the continent altogether, it is in the [U.S.] interest to maintain a strong deterrent in Europe by moving these 5,000 [U.S.] forces to the east,” the lawmakers said. “Those allies there have made substantial investments to host U.S. troops, reducing costs for the U.S. taxpayer while strengthening NATO’s front line to help deter a far more costly conflict from ever beginning.”
The idea of moving an Army brigade unit to Poland or another location along NATO’s eastern flank has long appealed to security analysts. Following the Pentagon’s announcement, several experts renewed calls to reposition the Vilseck, Germany-based regiment eastward.
The problem is that there are no obvious locations in Poland, or anywhere else on the eastern flank, with the kind of infrastructure traditionally required to support a permanent brigade and all the family members that come with it.
The Pentagon on Friday announced the decision to remove 5,000 troops from Germany. U.S. officials described the decision as part of a deliberative process, even though it followed days of public tension between President Donald Trump and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, who recently criticized the U.S. war in Iran.
The drawdown in Germany is expected to affect the Vilseck-based 2nd Cavalry Regiment, which has around 4,500 soldiers and already frequently conducts eastern flank missions. The unit, based near Germany’s border with the Czech Republic, is already within a short driving distance of Poland.
But relocating the regiment just a few hundred miles north on a permanent basis would require a major financial investment and involve large construction projects ranging from a new barracks and family housing units to a commissary and schools for the brigade’s school-age children.
Given the Pentagon’s timeline for removing the troops from Germany — between six months to a year— a major mobilization would be needed to build the sort of small-town garrison that Army families are accustomed to.
Over the past decade, Washington and Warsaw have already invested heavily in military infrastructure in Poland, which has emerged as the Army’s center of gravity in Europe. But virtually all that work has revolved around supporting rotational units that move in and out of the country, often on nine-month deployments.
In Poznan, the Army has a garrison to oversee infrastructure issues at a network of forward operating sites. Poznan also hosts the Army’s V Corps, a higher headquarters that deals with operational matters. But the base is positioned in a cramped urban setting with no significant training areas nearby.
In nearby Powidz, an Army logistical hub, current living arrangements are austere. The Army touted a major upgrade there in February when soldiers finally moved out of tents. The shift involved soldiers moving into containerized hard-cover “CHUs” commonly used during the Iraq War — a move seen as a major quality of life improvement.
The situation isn’t much different at other locations where the Army’s rotational ground forces operate in Poland.
A year ago, soldiers deployed at the Drawsko Pomorskie training area also moved out of tents and into a barracks facility. Soldiers welcomed the move, saying that the new facilities, which house six soldiers apiece, gave them more privacy than their former open-bay tents.
Still, such accommodations in a deployed environment are well below Army quality-of-life standards for soldiers on long-term missions lasting two to three years.
Circumstances are similar in the Baltic states and Romania, countries that are eager for more U.S. troops. Romania has embarked on a major buildup at Mihail Kogălniceanu Air Base, a site regularly used by rotational U.S. soldiers. Romanian officials want to make the base, located along the Black Sea coastline, larger than Ramstein Air Base and capable of hosting NATO forces. But that work is years from being finished.
If the Pentagon aims to move the 2nd Cavalry Regiment within the year, it will most likely need to find locations at bases in the United States. In theory, that could be a temporary arrangement if the Trump administration wants them to later take up positions in Poland or elsewhere in Europe.
Besides determining where to put troops being pulled from Germany, legal questions about the Pentagon’s drawdown plan remain unresolved.
A provision in the 2026 National Defense Authorization Act prohibits the Defense Department from using funds to make drastic changes to U.S. European Command before meeting extensive justification requirements. The law restricts the Pentagon from transferring any U.S. military facility to a host nation or handing over any pieces of military hardware valued at more than $500,000. It also prohibits the military from unilaterally reducing troop numbers in Europe below 76,000 — a threshold the plan doesn’t appear to breach, with about 85,000 troops currently on the Continent.
Wicker and Rogers said any significant change to U.S. force posture in Europe “warrants a deliberate review process and close coordination with Congress and our allies.”
“We expect the Department to engage with its oversight committees in the days and weeks ahead on this decision and its implications for U.S. deterrence and transatlantic security,” the lawmakers said.
Trump on Saturday, however, indicated there could be deeper cuts ahead.
“We’re going to cut way down,” Trump told reporters in Florida. “And we’re cutting a lot further than 5,000.”