The USA wants to relocate the command center of its troops in Europe from Stuttgart to Mons in Belgium and withdraw almost 12,000 soldiers from Germany – significantly more than originally expected.
US President Donald Trump had already announced a partial withdrawal of US troops from Germany in June. His accusation: Germany has been failing to meet NATO’s two percent target for years, according to which each alliance partner should spend two percent of its economic output on defense and the military, and therefore owes the military alliance billions and billions of dollars. “The troops stationed in Germany are there to protect Germany, but Germany is not paying for them,” said Trump. “So why should we leave them there?”
While the US government had originally spoken of withdrawing around 10,000 of the approximately 36,000 soldiers stationed in Germany, Trump now plans to withdraw up to 12,000. More than half of these (6,400) will return to the USA, while the rest will be transferred to other NATO countries, as Defense Minister Mark Esper explained in Washington. In contrast to Trump, he argued that the relocation was due to “strategic necessities” and that the aim was to increase the flexibility of the troops. In order to emphasize his demand, Trump also wants to relocate the headquarters of the US troops in Europe from Stuttgart to Mons, Belgium (where NATO’s military headquarters, Shape, is also based) in addition to withdrawing the troops. It is also possible that the command for US special forces in Europe, which is also stationed in Stuttgart, and the headquarters for US military operations in Africa (Africom) will be relocated to Mons or another location. The locations affected by the withdrawal plans are Vilseck, Grafenwoehr and Wildflecken in Bavaria as well as US Air Force units in Spangdahlem, which are to be relocated to Italy, where they are “closer to the Black Sea”, as Esper explained. There was already some fierce criticism from Germany after the withdrawal plans became known in June. Transatlantic Coordinator Peter Beyer has now condemned the poor communication of the US steps in advance. “It was unprecedented in a negative sense that the German government initially only found out about the withdrawal plans from the newspapers,” said Beyer. However, there was also criticism of the plans in the US Congress, where many representatives saw the withdrawal as a weakening of NATO that would play into Russia’s hands. According to Esper, the troop deployment is to be implemented “as quickly as possible”, but if Trump loses the presidential election in November, his successor could put the withdrawal plans on hold again.
Germany pays Russia billions of dollars a year for energy, and we are supposed to protect Germany from Russia. What’s that all about? Also, Germany is very delinquent in their 2% fee to NATO. We are therefore moving some troops out of Germany!
– Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 29, 2020
The partial withdrawal does not yet seem to be completely fixed, even for Trump himself. He is prepared to reconsider his decision, according to Trump. “But Germany has to start paying its bills.”
Below you will find an assessment of the effects of the troop withdrawal by former security policy expert Brigadier Walter Feichtinger.
