Halving U.S. troop levels in Europe
European leaders promised a sharp increase in defense and defense-related spending at the NATO summit in June, raising members’ overall budget commitments from two percent to five percent of GDP.
To encourage Europe to follow through on its own promises, Washington must lay out a realistic, targeted, and phased plan that cuts U.S. troop levels in Europe roughly in half over the next four years while keeping in place forces vital to U.S. security interests or forces that Europe cannot reasonably replace in that time
The reality is that U.S. troop deployments in Europe are larger than necessary to defend core U.S. interests on the continent, so they will remain near the top of the list of cuts. This is not because Europe is unimportant to the United States but because many U.S. forces in Europe are unneeded given the current threat level and becoming redundant as Europe’s military might grows.
Christopher S. Chivvis -- Foreign Affairs
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