{"id":29305,"date":"2026-05-16T01:59:25","date_gmt":"2026-05-16T01:59:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/29305\/"},"modified":"2026-05-16T01:59:25","modified_gmt":"2026-05-16T01:59:25","slug":"army-leaders-in-hot-seat-over-poland-deployment-cancellation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/29305\/","title":{"rendered":"Army leaders in hot seat over Poland deployment cancellation"},"content":{"rendered":"

Army leaders struggled Friday to respond to congressional furor over the Pentagon\u2019s decision to abruptly cancel a deployment of more than 4,000 soldiers to Poland this month. <\/p>\n

Acting Army Chief of Staff Gen. Christopher LaNeve said in an Army budget hearing that the order to halt a planned 9-month rotation to Europe by 2nd Armored Brigade Combat Team, 1st Cavalry Division to Eastern Europe came from Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. <\/p>\n

LaNeve and Army Secretary Dan Driscoll said they were informed of the order and had been consulted, but they wouldn\u2019t provide the exact timing of the decision. On May 1, the unit had cased its colors in preparation for deployment, dispatched its advanced team and launched its equipment overseas.<\/p>\n

Soldiers began discussing the decision to scrap the deployment publicly early Tuesday morning; the order was confirmed Wednesday by Army Times<\/a> and other news media. <\/p>\n

LaNeve said the decision was made \u201cin the last two weeks\u201d by the Defense Department and Gen. Alexus Grynkewich, commander of U.S. European Command and the NATO Supreme Allied Commander Europe.<\/p>\n

LaNeve and Driscoll downplayed the move as part of routine manning reviews conducted throughout the year.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are constantly in contact with [the Office of the Secretary of Defense] and the combatant commanders \u2026 and this is not meant to hide the ball,\u201d Driscoll said during a House Armed Services Committee hearing. <\/p>\n

\u201cThis type of conversation is going on throughout the year, every single year, and the Army is always ready to move people and things based off combatant commander and Secretary of War preferences,\u201d Driscoll added.<\/p>\n

But lawmakers questioned the timing and the reasons, lambasting the order that Rep. Don Bacon, R-Neb., said sent a \u201cterrible message to Russia and our allies.\u201d <\/p>\n

Bacon said he had spoken with Polish leaders who were \u201cblindsided\u201d by the decision and understood that Grynkewich had expressed reservations to the order, saying that it was not without risk.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a slap in the face to Poland. It\u2019s a slap in the face to our Baltic friends. I think it\u2019s a slap to the face in this committee, because we\u2019ve put floors and restrictions on the Pentagon on further reductions in Europe because of what they did with Romania,\u201d Bacon said. <\/p>\n

CNN reported Thursday that Hegseth made the decision<\/a> in relation to the administration\u2019s efforts to pressure Europe to increase its own defenses.<\/p>\n

CNN also reported that Hegseth\u2019s order canceled a deployment of 3rd Battalion, 12th Field Artillery Regiment to Germany later this year and a command that oversees long-range rockets and missiles will be removed from Europe.<\/p>\n

The news follows an announcement May 1 that the U.S. would withdraw 5,000 troops from Germany \u2014 a decision Pentagon officials said was made following a review of \u201ctheater requirements and conditions on the ground.\u201d<\/p>\n

But critics say the withdrawal is retribution for NATO countries deciding not to join the U.S. in attacking Iran. President Donald Trump repeatedly has criticized NATO countries for not investing more in their own defense and said in March that NATO would face a \u201cbad future\u201d if they didn\u2019t help defend the Strait of Hormuz.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf there\u2019s no response, or if it\u2019s a negative response, I think it will be very bad for the future of NATO,\u201d Trump told the Financial Times<\/a>. <\/p>\n

Army leaders did not say how many soldiers were affected by the decision or provide the number of personnel in the advanced echelon that now must return to Fort Hood, where the brigade is based. <\/p>\n

The order has upended the lives of at least 4,500 soldiers, however, many of whom made preparations to vacate homes and apartments, store belongings and relocate their families. <\/p>\n

The order also cost money: in a text message reviewed by Army Times Tuesday, a brigade member estimated the cost and retrieval of equipment at $4 million.<\/p>\n

Acting Pentagon Press Secretary Joel Valdez said Thursday the decision was \u201cnot an unexpected, last-minute decision,\u201d but lawmakers pushed back on that assessment, with Rep. Austin Scott, R-Ga., saying he didn\u2019t see how the \u201cstatement can be true.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThese are major decisions that appear to many of the members of this committee to be last-minute decisions,\u201d Scott said. <\/p>\n

LaNeve and Driscoll noted that in their roles as chief of staff and secretary, their jobs are administrative and they have no authority in operational decisions. <\/p>\n

LaNeve\u2019s multiple references to the law that dictates the structure of the armed forces \u2014 and the pair\u2019s lack of response \u2014 irritated several committee members. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe have been very focused on this committee about force posture, and EUCOM in particular not being disturbed, particularly without \u2014 what the statute requires \u2014 is consultation with us, and we didn\u2019t get that, so we don\u2019t know what\u2019s going on here, but I just tell you we\u2019re not happy,\u201d said Committee Chairman Mike Rogers, R-Ala.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is a pretty dramatic decision to, at the last minute, pull a team that you\u2019re trying to send over there,\u201d agreed Rep. Adam Smith, D-Wash., the committee\u2019s ranking member. \u201cIf there\u2019s some strategy behind it, then you guys ought to know, and you ought to be able to communicate it to us.\u201d<\/p>\n

The U.S. has roughly 80,000 service members in Europe. <\/p>\n

European Command did not respond to a request for comment by publication.<\/p>\n

About Patricia\u00a0Kime<\/p>\n

Patricia Kime is a senior writer covering military and veterans health care, medicine and personnel issues.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Army leaders struggled Friday to respond to congressional furor over the Pentagon\u2019s decision to abruptly cancel a deployment…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":29306,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[7484,3487,17858,10760,17860,190,191,194,192,189,193,1431,2139,17857,17863,591,17861,8,1072,17862,17859,1795,195,596,9,8664,790,7,6754],"class_list":{"0":"post-29305","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-top-stories","8":"tag-adam-smith","9":"tag-army","10":"tag-army-chief-of-staff","11":"tag-austin-scott","12":"tag-brigade-combat-team","13":"tag-circulated-air-force-times","14":"tag-circulated-army-times","15":"tag-circulated-defense-news","16":"tag-circulated-marine-corps-times","17":"tag-circulated-military-times","18":"tag-circulated-navy-times","19":"tag-dn-dnr","20":"tag-don-bacon","21":"tag-driscoll","22":"tag-eucom","23":"tag-europe","24":"tag-fort-hood","25":"tag-headlines","26":"tag-hegseth","27":"tag-house-armed-services-committee","28":"tag-la-neve","29":"tag-mike-rogers","30":"tag-military-times","31":"tag-nato","32":"tag-news","33":"tag-poland","34":"tag-russia","35":"tag-top-stories","36":"tag-us-army"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@news\/116581784806970089","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29305","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29305"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29305\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29306"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29305"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29305"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29305"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}