WASHINGTON -- The U.S. will bring about 6,400 troops home from Germany and shift about 5,600 to other countries in Europe, American defense leaders said Wednesday, detailing a Pentagon plan that will cost billions of dollars and take years to complete.
The decision fulfills President Donald Trump's announced desire to withdraw troops from Germany, largely because of its failure to spend enough on defense. A number of forces will go to Italy, and a major move would shift U.S. European Command headquarters and Special Operations Command Europe from Stuttgart, Germany, to Belgium.
The future of the plan is contingent on support and funding from Congress, and a number of members have voiced opposition.
Defense Secretary Mark Esper defended the plan Wednesday, saying that while the decision was "accelerated" by Trump's orders, the moves also promote larger strategic goals to deter Russia, reassure European allies and shift forces farther east into the Black Sea and Baltic regions.
"I am confident that the alliance will be all the better and stronger for it," Esper told reporters. "We can see some moves begin within weeks."
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"We're moving forces out of central Europe, Germany, where they've been since the Cold War," Esper said, adding that it will shift U.S. forces east, closer to Russia, "where our newest allies are."
Trump told reporters Wednesday, "We're reducing the force because they're not paying their bills. It's very simple. They're delinquent." He added that he might rethink the decision to pull troops out of Germany "if they start paying their bills."
"The United States has been taken advantage of, on trade and on military and everything else for many years. And I'm here, and I've been straightening it out," he told reporters. "But Germany owes billions and billions of dollars to NATO. And why would we keep all of our troops there?"
"We are protecting Germany. So we are reducing the force because they're not paying bills. It's very simple," he said. "If they start paying bills, I would rethink."
NATO nations have pledged to dedicate 2% of their gross domestic product to defense spending by 2024, and Germany is still short of that goal, at about 1.4%.
Esper said the military moves will cost in the "single digit" billions of dollars, though bringing troops home could reap some future deployment savings. Some smaller units could move within months, and the plan leaves about 24,000 troops in Germany.
SOME GOP OBJECTIONS
Nearly two dozen Republicans on the House Armed Services Committee sent a letter to Trump saying a reduced U.S. commitment to Europe's defense would encourage Russian aggression. And Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah, on Wednesday called the plan a "grave error," saying it's a slap in Germany's face that will do lasting harm to American interests.
"This is so clearly a punitive move against Germany that it's hard to see any benefit from this," said Rachel Rizzo, director of programs at the Truman Center for National Policy, who focuses on European security issues. "It really puts future administrations in a bind; it gives them no room to maneuver and will stick in Europeans' mind well into the future."
Esper said the change was a part of an ongoing review of U.S. troop presence around the world that was "accelerated" by Trump's announcement to cut forces in Germany. Esper sought to explain to reporters that the move was not a punitive action prompted by the president.
"I'm telling you that this is going to accomplish what the president said with regard to getting us down to a lower number in Europe, and it meets those other objectives I outlined with regard to the strategic piece," Esper said.
Sen. Jack Reed of Rhode Island, the top Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee, described it as a "self-inflicted wound" that would do the opposite of what Esper said it would.
NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg, meanwhile, welcomed the U.S. move and said Washington has been consulting allies on the matter recently.
In a statement, Stoltenberg said Washington had "consulted closely" with NATO nations.
"As we face a more unpredictable world, we are stronger and safer when we stand together," he said.
BENEFIT FOR POLAND
Germany's defense and foreign ministries, in a joint statement, noted the announcement, and said that "planning is not yet complete and may be subject to further adjustments." Chancellor Angela Merkel has defended Germany's defense spending, saying that it has increased and that the country will continue to work toward the 2% benchmark.
Under the plan, the Air Force's 52nd Civil Engineering Squadron could be the first to move, going from Germany to Italy, said Gen. Tod Wolters, head of U..S. European Command. An Air Force F-16 squadron and several other small units are also to go to Italy.
After the announcement, a lawmaker with Germany's opposition Left Party, which has its roots in the former East German communist party and has urged a U.S. troops withdrawal, called the plan "far from sufficient."
"Wars are waged all over the world through the U.S. bases in Germany, including drone attacks that violate international law," said Tobias Pflueger, deputy party leader with the Left Party.
The Pentagon announcement is closely tied to the plan to increase the U.S. troop presence in Poland, a shift long desired by Warsaw and Polish President Andrzej Duda.
Officials said the troop moves will require construction at bases in the U.S., specifically to accommodate the Army's 2nd Cavalry Regiment, which will move from Vilseck, Germany, to a yet-undetermined place in America.
Germany is a hub for U.S. operations in the Middle East and Africa. The decision to keep nearly half the forces in Europe is a move by the Pentagon to assuage allies by avoiding the complete withdrawal of 12,000 troops out of the region. And spreading forces into the east signals to Russia that the U.S. is not reducing its commitment to the region and remains ready to protect eastern Europe from Moscow's aggression.
Sen. Jim Inhofe, the Republican chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, has voiced support for the plan while acknowledging that it will take "months to plan and years to execute."
'BITTER DAY'
Trump announced last month that he wanted to cut the number of active-duty U.S. troops in Germany from roughly 36,000 to fewer than 25,000. Shifting forces out of the country had long been rumored and is in line with Pentagon efforts to put more troops in the Indo-Pacific.
At a Rose Garden event last month with Duda, Trump said some of the troops from Germany would go to Poland. On Wednesday, officials suggested that Poland may get some additional rotational forces that would go in and out of Europe. Lithuania also has pressed for a U.S. troop presence, but was not mentioned.
Under an agreement announced last year, the U.S. said it was sending about 1,000 more troops to Poland, and progress is being made to prepare for those moves.
In 2012, the Obama administration withdrew two combat brigades from Germany to a mostly muted response, though it was opposed by many officials in Europe.
Overall, the U.S. has about 47,000 troops and civilian personnel in Germany. Most of the 36,000 on active duty are in a handful of larger Army and Air Force bases including Ramstein Air Base, a regional hub. There also are 2,600 National Guard and Reserve forces and almost 12,000 civilians there.
"It is a bitter day," German politician Roger Lewentz told the public broadcaster SWR in Rhineland-Palatinate, the southwestern state where the Spangdahlem Air Base is home to about 4,000 U.S. Air Force personnel, many of whom are stationed there with their families. About 670 Germans are employed at the base, in one of the country's economically weakest regions.
"Unfortunately, this decision by the U.S. administration will mean the loss of German jobs," Lewentz said. "The German employees didn't deserve this."
The administration has threatened to withdraw troops from South Korea and Japan, which both host tens of thousands of U.S. personnel, as negotiations stall over U.S. demands for more compensation. The administration also is discussing future troop numbers with Iraq.
Information for this article was contributed by Lolita C. Baldor, Zeke Miller, David Rising, Lorne Cook and Jari Tanner of The Associated Press; by Thomas Gibbons-Neff of The New York Times; and by Missy Ryan, Karen DeYoung, Loveday Morris, Fiona Weber-Steihaus, Michael Birnbaum and Karoun Demirjian of The Washington Post.
