Troop Redeployments From Europe and Asia

[NousDefionsDoc]

Wonder what the reaction to this will be?

US plans to cut forces overseas by 70,000
By Peter Spiegel in London
Published: August 13 2004 22:01 | Last updated: August 14 2004 00:51

The US is expected to announce on Monday that it is pulling 70,000 troops out of Europe and Asia in the largest restructuring of its global military presence since the second world war.


People briefed on the plan say two-thirds of the reductions will come in Europe, most of them military personnel stationed in Germany who will be sent back to US bases.

An additional 100,000 support staff and military families worldwide will be part of the realignment.


The changes are expected to be announced by President George W. Bush at a speech to the Convention of Veterans of Foreign Wars in Cinncinatti, Ohio, on Monday.

Although Germany will remain home to the largest contingent of American forces on the continent, both army divisions now based there the 1st Armoured and the 1st Infantry could be moved to US bases.

Germany will continue to be home to sophisticated training and command facilities and to a mobile infantry force which will be equipped with the new light-armoured Stryker vehicles and is expected to form the core of a restructured European presence.

The Bush administration has been re-evaluating the US military's global posture almost since its first days in office. Senior Pentagon officials emphasised that the move was not intended as a punishment for Germany's lack of support in the Iraq war.

In Asia, the reduction is expected to include the 3,500-soldier brigade from South Korea, which was recently deployed to Iraq.

There will also be a shift of some European command headquarters. The navy's European HQ, which has been in London since the second world war, will be moved to Naples.
http://news.ft.com/cms/s/117d14c8-ed63-11d8-a587-00000e2511c8.html

[Radar Rider]

What's to say? The world has changed, and the U.S. shall change with it. We don't need huge amounts of troops stationed in Europe anymore. The same applies to Korea. The South Korean military is one of the best on the planet, and only need us for political reasons.

All that we as nation really need now are forward staging bases. By maintaining a reduced presence in both Europe and Asia, but NOT giving up bases allows us to maintain that necessary presence. If we keep some bases active around the world, we'll have the force projection platform capability that we need to maintain. It makes sense to bring our combat capability back to CONUS.

[Ghostrider]

I think it's a good thing and the European reaction is irrelevant (to me). Maybe now they'll take some of the responsibility of their own defense seriously and understand that conflicts like Bosnia are going to require their involvement. No more US to lean on or blame (which they'll do anyway) if they screw something up....now at least we can say we don't have the presence in Europe to be their clean up crew.

[NousDefionsDoc]

I would love to hear what AL and The Colonel have to say about this.

[Jack Moroney (RIP)]

There are a lot of issues involved here. NATO as an entity is one. With the EU attempting to develop its own military force for those things that are strictly in EU's interest the question of the relevance of NATO is being called into question. When the US draws down its forces it is also drawing down its ability to leverage US interests in the region.

If you look at what is going on now in Europe, their defense spending is being cut back and they are consolidating capabilities to build ships, aircraft, and combat vehicles because individual countries are no longer able to foot the bill for some of the more expensive items. While the US and some European countries are jointly building some items like the Joint Strike Fighter, the loss of US capability in theater will probably drive folks to other countries to develop joint capabilities which might in the long run prevent us from interacting with "allied armies" on the ground because of incompatible systems.

Then there is the intelligence issues, keep your "friends close but your enemies closer". We have already seen shifts in countries interests that have put us at odds. Our friends today may not be our friends tomorrow and probably the best folks to get a good sensing about that are the military folks that are interacting with other military folks. You might be surprised to know what pops up on the radar when a bunch of troops get down and dirty together.

While it might make sense to move some of our troop concentrations out of areas from which it is difficult to deploy or where the threat is minimal and we can get back there if we need to, before we start shuffling them back to CONUS we need to get off our ass and do something about strategic air and sea lift. We have a long way to go on this issue.

Now, I would rather see more troops, albeit, in smaller numbers, in more places for a lot of reasons. One is to play the role of global scouts where that good old soldier to soldier contact is made and information is developed on areas of potential conflict. Call it shaping the battlefield if you want, but we need eyes on target in a lot more places than we currently have them. I guess old habits die hard but I sort of would like to see the world treated as one big area complex.

Enough for now, I feel like I am getting wound up.

Jack Moroney:munchin

[Airbornelawyer]

DOD is supposed to put out a fuller fact sheet later today, but the information in the news report is essentially what the President announced, except for one detail: the drawdown is to take place over a 10-year span. This is not an especially drastic drawdown compared to earlier periods. In 1992, US Army Europe alone lost 70,000 troops, reducing it to 122,000 (and it is half that today). In two years, it lost a corps headquarters, two heavy divisions and two cavalry regiments, as well as various support units. US Air Forces Europe had a similar post-Cold War drawdown, going from 70,000 personnel and 850 aircraft in the late 1980s to 42,000 personnel and 220 aircraft today.

That said, EUCOM has already dropped to about 100,000 total, so a further 70,000, even over 10 years, represents a serious recasting of the US role in Europe.

Of course, the main issue is not how many troops we have in Europe or how many we bring back, but what kind of troops. This is true for the armed forces as a whole, too. We still have in many places an infrastructure designed for ramping up in case of a major conventional war, with lots of EAC assets, while we scramble to find shooters in our actual wars.

The goal seems to be to reorient EUCOM as an expeditionary headquarters, and move it away from the defense of Europe per se. Moving CINCUSNAVEUR to Italy fits that, since the 6th Fleet is its main asset anyway, and puts the command closer to its main AO.

USAREUR has the bulk of EUCOM, about 65,000 troops, with V Corps comprising the biggest chunk, followed by 21st Theater Support Command. Closing lots of bases should lead to big cuts in the 21st TSC, but I don't see how you get from 100,000 to 30,000 without pulling out V Corps. I get the feeling that at the end of the day, the 173rd and maybe a heavy or Stryker brigade resulting from 1AD's or 1ID's transformation will be all that is left of forward-deployed manuever forces.

As for USAFE, Third Air Force might end up on the chopping block. In the post-Cold War drawdown, Third Air Force reduced personnel by about 40%, but fighter aircraft by about 80%, making me wonder how much bureaucracy stuck around. Sixteenth Air Force has become more of an expeditionary headquarters, and may be the model for USAFE.

There's also already been a lot of talk about moving the CTC out of Germany to an Eastern European locale with more maneuver space and fewer Green politicians. You also hear about moving deployable assets to Eastern and Southeastern Europe to be closer to their potential AOs, though I am not sure that this is realistic because (a) who is to say where our future AOs are going to be, and (b) these countries lack the advanced infrastructure that Germany has, so a lot of building up would be necessary to reach a comparable level of deployability. On (a), consider, for example, a crisis in Algeria or Libya. Moving US forces from Germany to Romania or Hungary actually puts them further away.

And then there's politics. I hope some decisions are not being made based on shallow assumptions about things like "New Europe" vs. "Old Europe" or the presumption that current alliances will last. Look at Spain for an example of how shallow such an assumption could prove. Poland and Romania are our close allies today, but in a few years, their policies may be far more closely aligned with the EU. Italy and Germany are also illustrative. Berlusconi's Italy is a strong ally, but Prodi's Italy would be like Zapatero's Spain. Meanwhile, while you might not see German troops going anywhere anytime soon, a shift in power away from the SPD/Greens to Union might lead to a sea change in US/German relations (although German/French relations will likely not change, as they have a compelling self-interest in cooperative relations).