E. Europe watching closely as US weighs troop numbers

E. Europe watching closely as US weighs troop numbers
By Fabien ZAMORA
Paris (AFP) April 11, 2025

A reduction in the number of US soldiers in eastern Europe would be seen as Washington moving another step closer to Moscow and a worrying sign for Europeans, according to analysts.

The NBC news channel, quoting US and European sources, said this week that Department of Defense officials were looking at the withdrawal of 10,000 troops.

The 10,000 are part of the 20,000 additional military personnel deployed by the Joe Biden administration to bolster eastern Europe's security after Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

In all, some 100,000 US soldiers are based in Europe, just over 65,000 of them permanently, according to the Pentagon.

General Christopher Cavoli, head of US forces in Europe, on Wednesday told the US House of Representatives that the figures were constantly reviewed.

"I have consistently recommended... to maintain the forces we surged forward and I would continue to do so," he said.

- Force review -

During the same hearing, Katherine Thompson, a Pentagon official, did not rule out that option, adding that a review of US deployments across the world was under way based on President Donald Trump's "stated interests".

"No decision has been made at this time as part of that global force review," she said.

Trump has repeatedly argued that keeping a US military presence across the world is too costly and that the country's strategic priority is China.

Artur Kacprzyk, an analyst in the international security programme at the Polish Institute of International Affairs, said it was "easier" to withdraw rotational forces than permanent ones.

But eastern European countries such as Poland, Romania or the Baltic states hope to keep their US contingents.

"Poland has been repeatedly mentioned as a country worth investing in," said Poland's Defence Minister Wladyslaw Kosiniak-Kamysz.

"So, looking from the other side so to speak, they're probably not looking among those who are their closest allies to put them through anything."

- 'Huge concession' -

George Scutaru, founder of the New Strategy Center and a former national security adviser to Romania's president, said a reduction "would be a very bad signal" and encourage Russian aggression "towards Europe, in Europe".

"This will be interpreted like a huge concession made by America to Russia," he told AFP.

"Such a reduction would increase concerns about US reliability as an ally, and concerns that the US is working on some kind of a deal with the Russians at the expense of the security of the countries of the region," added Kacprzyk.

Trump's phone calls with Russian President Vladimir Putin, US-Russia bilateral meetings, prisoner exchanges and talks to end the war in Ukraine have spooked Washington's traditional allies.

The presence of US troops in the former communist bloc is a constant bugbear for the Kremlin and in 2021 it demanded the withdrawal of allied forces from NATO's eastern flank.

"Obviously, Russia would welcome a reduction in US forces near its borders," said Kacprzyk.

Now, said Scutaru, "it's impossible to decouple" negotiations about Ukraine and the deeper, more long-term US disengagement from Europe.

"Already under (US President Barack) Obama in 2013-14 there was a first move with the withdrawal of two of the four combat brigades," said Guillaume Lasconjarias, from the French Institute for Advance Studies in National Defence (IHEDN)

The profile of US infantry units in Europe has been transformed, he said, with fewer combat troops, more support personnel facilitating the rapid redeployment of fighters and an increase in the capabilities of European countries.

Any withdrawal of these reinforcement troops sent in 2022 would re-establish the "status quo ante", he added.

But a keen eye is needed on what will be decided, particularly the fate of the US Army V Corps, which partially returned to Poland in 2022.

"During the Cold War era, the V Corps was the one structuring the defence against the Iron Curtain," said Lasconjarias.

"If they close it, the signal is that we are returning to a peacetime posture and not a crisis time posture."

fz/cat/jp/phz

NSC GROUPE