{"id":452787,"date":"2025-09-26T12:25:10","date_gmt":"2025-09-26T12:25:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/452787\/"},"modified":"2025-09-26T12:25:10","modified_gmt":"2025-09-26T12:25:10","slug":"finland-urges-us-to-keep-key-military-equipment-in-europe-politico","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/452787\/","title":{"rendered":"Finland urges US to keep key military equipment in Europe \u2013 POLITICO"},"content":{"rendered":"

He added: \u201cI\u2019m sure there will be some reduction, but by how much we don\u2019t know.\u201d<\/p>\n

While some American policymakers have called for reducing U.S. troop numbers, the Pentagon has yet to reveal its plans. Officials in countries that neighbor Russia \u2014 which has repeatedly violated European airspace in recent days \u2014 are bracing for imminent drawdowns, with Estonian President Alar Karis telling POLITICO earlier this month<\/a> that front-line nations needed to prepare for this possibility.<\/p>\n

The main concern for European NATO allies, per Stubb, was that the U.S. continues to keep “essential equipment,” such as “air carriers” and radar, based on the continent. The U.S. currently has between 70,000 and 90,000 troops<\/a> stationed in Europe \u2014 a number that increased under former President Joe Biden after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.<\/p>\n

‘Interpreting Zelenskyy’<\/p>\n

In Finland \u2014 whose border with Russia is more than 1,300 kilometers long \u2014 the president is in charge of foreign policy as well as being commander-in-chief of the armed forces. As such, Stubb has been credited with playing an important role in speaking to U.S. President Donald Trump about the war in Ukraine, including during a round of golf<\/a> in March.<\/p>\n

The outing was credited with helping to change Trump’s perspective on Ukraine, as it was shortly afterward that he started to speak and post more critically about Vladimir Putin and Russia’s role in the world \u2014 though Stubb was adamant about not claiming too much credit for influencing the American president.<\/p>\n

“Under no circumstance do I want to inflame my own role,” he said. “I think Europe and the United States are playing well together under Trump \u2014 much better than they did in 2016. There is deep cooperation, especially with the big boys: France, U.K., Germany and Italy. And then I want to stress that President Trump has close relations with Secretary-General [of NATO] Mark Rutte and [European] Commission President Ursula von der Leyen.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"He added: \u201cI\u2019m sure there will be some reduction, but by how much we don\u2019t know.\u201d While some…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":452788,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5311],"tags":[18992,766,768,32,5898,2595,769,805,36,1824,1195,476,2199,714,2992,2597,8723,24082,332,2663,657,15,49,1220,978,659,333,771,335],"class_list":{"0":"post-452787","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-united-states","8":"tag-airspace","9":"tag-alexander-stubb","10":"tag-borders","11":"tag-donald-trump","12":"tag-donald-tusk","13":"tag-drones","14":"tag-finland","15":"tag-foreign-policy","16":"tag-france","17":"tag-germany","18":"tag-growth","19":"tag-inflation","20":"tag-italy","21":"tag-joe-biden","22":"tag-mark-rutte","23":"tag-military","24":"tag-pentagon","25":"tag-radar","26":"tag-russia","27":"tag-sanctions","28":"tag-ukraine","29":"tag-united-kingdom","30":"tag-united-states","31":"tag-ursula-von-der-leyen","32":"tag-us","33":"tag-usa","34":"tag-vladimir-putin","35":"tag-war","36":"tag-war-in-ukraine"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115270590410160124","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/452787","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=452787"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/452787\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/452788"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=452787"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=452787"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=452787"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}