From Athens, where he was on a diplomatic visit, German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul tried to dampen concern in the markets and among allies following the Pentagon\u2019s announcement to withdraw 5,000 soldiers from Germany. Wadephul stated he had \u201cno doubt\u201d that a reduction in NATO\u2019s conventional deterrence capabilities will occur, arguing that the difference will be bridged one way or another.<\/p>\n
He then added that the planned installation of American long-range missiles in Germany was conceived from the beginning as a temporary measure, pending Europe\u2019s development of similar capabilities. However, the minister acknowledged the need to develop and deploy its own national capabilities more quickly, calling it an unavoidable path.<\/p>\n
But the German diplomat\u2019s words struggle to hide the real extent of the crisis. The withdrawal of the 5,000 soldiers, about one-seventh of the 36,000 Americans present in Germany, was not communicated in advance to NATO commands, which caused irritation within the alliance. Trump then raised the stakes by announcing that the reduction will go much further than the 5,000 men initially declared.<\/p>\n
The move even provoked rare bipartisan criticism within the US Congress: the Republican chairmen of the Senate and House Armed Services Committees, Roger Wicker and Mike Rogers, warned that reducing troops in Germany risks sending the wrong signal to Vladimir Putin, and that European defense spending does not yet translate into sufficient operational capabilities to fill the void. At the same time, the Pentagon informed European allies to expect delays in weapon supplies, as the United States focuses on replenishing its own ammunition stockpiles consumed during the war against Iran. Among the most critical equipment lacking are missiles for the HIMARS systems and Patriot air defenses.<\/p>\n
Photo Nato.int<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"From Athens, where he was on a diplomatic visit, German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul tried to dampen concern…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":10731,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[18,478],"class_list":{"0":"post-10730","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-berlin","8":"tag-berlin","9":"tag-nato"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10730","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=10730"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10730\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10731"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10730"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10730"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10730"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}