Pentagon officials said on Friday that they were pulling 5,000 troops from Germany and would redeploy them to the United States and other posts overseas.<\/p>\n
The Defense Department is also canceling a plan developed under the Biden administration to place a missile-equipped artillery unit in Europe.<\/p>\n
The moves will return U.S. forces in Europe to the level they were in 2022, before Russia began its war in Ukraine, the officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss the planning process. Last year, the Pentagon redeployed a brigade in Romania and did not send replacement forces.<\/p>\n
Sean Parnell, a Pentagon spokesman, said in a statement that the withdrawal would be completed over the next six to 12 months.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis decision follows a thorough review of the department\u2019s force posture in Europe and is in recognition of theater requirements and conditions on the ground,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The Defense Department \u2014 particularly during both of President Trump\u2019s terms \u2014 has for several years considered decreasing the military presence in Germany. But senior defense officials privately made it clear that they wanted the move to be seen as a punishment for Germany, whose recent comments about the U.S. war in Iran have annoyed Mr. Trump.<\/p>\n
Earlier this week, Germany\u2019s chancellor, Friedrich Merz, said Iran had \u201chumiliated\u201d the United States, and he questioned how Mr. Trump planned to end the conflict.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Americans obviously have no strategy,\u201d Mr. Merz said.<\/p>\n
Mr. Trump then took to Truth Social, his social media site, to vent.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe United States is studying and reviewing the possible reduction of Troops in Germany, with a determination to be made over the next short period of time,\u201d he wrote on Thursday.<\/p>\n
Later, he added: \u201cThe Chancellor of Germany should spend more time on ending the war with Russia\/Ukraine (Where he has been totally ineffective!), and fixing his broken Country, especially Immigration and Energy, and less time on interfering with those that are getting rid of the Iran Nuclear threat, thereby making the World, including Germany, a safer place!\u201d<\/p>\n
On Friday, while announcing the decision, a senior Pentagon official said that Germany\u2019s failure to contribute to the Iran war effort had frustrated the United States, and that the country\u2019s rhetoric was inappropriate and unhelpful.<\/p>\n
The announcement, and the criticism of Germany, represents a shift for Pentagon officials, who recently had praised Germany\u2019s efforts to increase military spending and take over more of the burden of supporting Ukraine.<\/p>\n
Even if the Pentagon pulls 5,000 troops out of Germany, the country would still host the second-largest U.S. troop presence in the world, at more than 30,000, behind only Japan.<\/p>\n
Defense officials say the United States depends on its bases in Germany to stage many of its operations in the Middle East, Europe and Africa.<\/p>\n
The Iran war has made that clear. Many U.S. troops evacuated from bases in the Middle East that were targeted by Iran were moved to Germany. And many of the U.S. troops wounded in the war have been taken to Germany \u2014 to Landstuhl Regional Medical Center near Ramstein Air Base \u2014 for treatment.<\/p>\n
The U.S. military\u2019s Africa Command and European Command are also headquartered in Germany.<\/p>\n
Defense officials said the reduction would not directly affect Landstuhl or other medical facilities in Germany where U.S. troops receive care.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Pentagon officials said on Friday that they were pulling 5,000 troops from Germany and would redeploy them to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":9551,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[6915,3901,4448,5,9050,4206,255,8510,3902],"class_list":{"0":"post-9550","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-germany","8":"tag-defense-department","9":"tag-donald-j","10":"tag-friedrich","11":"tag-germany","12":"tag-landstuhl-regional-medical-center","13":"tag-merz","14":"tag-trump","15":"tag-united-states-defense-and-military-forces","16":"tag-united-states-international-relations"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9550","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=9550"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9550\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9551"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9550"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9550"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9550"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}