Details of the US withdrawal plan<\/p>\n
US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has ordered the withdrawal of approximately 5,000 troops from Germany within a year, representing about 15% of the total US forces stationed there. Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell explained that the decision followed a comprehensive review of the force posture in Europe and took into account the realities on the ground. He anticipated the withdrawal would be completed within six to twelve months. Despite this withdrawal, Washington will maintain more than 30,000 troops in Germany. Data previously indicated that there were 36,436 US military personnel in Germany as of December 2025.<\/p>\n
Reactions in Berlin<\/p>\n
Commenting on the decision, German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius stated that the move was expected, emphasizing the need for Europeans to assume greater responsibility for their own security.<\/p>\n
Pistorius affirmed that Germany is working diligently to develop and enhance the capabilities of the German armed forces. He added that Germany is also striving to accelerate the acquisition of advanced military equipment and to build and upgrade more vital military infrastructure. The German minister noted that the American presence is in the interest of both sides, and reiterated Berlin\u2019s commitment to close coordination with its allies on all future missions.<\/p>\n
Political context and recent tensions<\/p>\n
This decision comes amid a tense political climate, with US President Donald Trump signaling a review of troop deployments following criticism from German Chancellor Friedrich Merz regarding the US strategy in the conflict with Iran. Merz stated that the United States was being \u201chumiliated\u201d by Iran, criticizing the lack of an effective strategy to end the conflict. This appears to have influenced decisions regarding US military deployments in Europe.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Details of the US withdrawal plan US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has ordered the withdrawal of approximately 5,000…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":10368,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[250,18,5,253,57,478,254,255,92,256],"class_list":{"0":"post-10367","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-berlin","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-berlin","10":"tag-germany","11":"tag-iran","12":"tag-israel","13":"tag-nato","14":"tag-the-middle-east","15":"tag-trump","16":"tag-us","17":"tag-voice-of-emirates"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10367","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10367"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10367\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10368"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10367"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10367"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10367"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}