Der Spiegel: The Pentagon gathered senior NATO officials on Friday and announced ...

❗️Der Spiegel: The Pentagon gathered senior NATO officials on Friday and told them about a plan to reduce US forces in Europe. The US will significantly cut the number of strategic bombers, refueling tankers, and destroyers, slash its fighter aircraft fleet by a third, withdraw both aircraft carriers and all submarines, remove all reconnaissance drones, and reduce strike UAVs. The Europeans were floored.

At the same time, the US is not refusing to defend Europe or provide nuclear deterrence, but it is moving quickly toward reducing its conventional capabilities.

The number of American troops in Europe may nominally remain unchanged. The reduction will happen through a change in NATO’s force model, meaning the amount of assets available to NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander Europe for use in the event of an attack.

(Got it, right? This is how they get around the NDAA, which prohibits withdrawing troops from Europe: they simply remove a number of assets from the supreme commander’s authority. Conditionally, some submarine may be stationed off the coast of Europe, and strategic bombers may be based at European air bases, but General Grynkewich will not have the authority to command them in the event of a Russian invasion. Clever.)

Under the current model, formed under Biden after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the US had about 50% of NATO’s capabilities in Europe. Now the US is demanding a "redistribution of powers."

Details.

▪️The briefing was conducted by Alexander Velez-Green (Elbridge Colby’s deputy). He presented those gathered with concrete numbers regarding the US vision of its role in Europe. The proposal turned out to be far more radical than the Europeans had expected.

▪️The Europeans had expected minor adjustments, but the Americans hit where it hurts: minus one-third of combat fighters, a significant reduction in strategic bombers, plus the withdrawal of both aircraft carriers and all submarines. The US is also completely removing reconnaissance UAVs and reducing strike ones.

▪️Moreover, the Europeans were given a hard deadline: by early June they must present a plan for how and with what to replace all of this, so that a new NATO force model can be announced at the NATO summit in Ankara on July 7-8.

▪️For the Europeans, almost everything listed above is a major problem. Say, fighter jets can still be compensated for: the first F-35s arrived in Poland last week, and Germany is supposed to receive them next year. But when it comes to strategic bombers, Europeans do not have them as a class, and aircraft carriers will also be hard to replace.

(As for me, the naval component is only half the trouble; it will be much harder for them to replace the refueling tankers. That is a key element of NATO’s combat concept, which is oriented toward air superiority, - ed.)

▪️In addition, Velez-Green said that "the US is ready to work closely with those partners who are ready to act quickly." Some Europeans took this as an indirect threat (that the US would not defend them in the event of an attack, - ed.).

▪️The Europeans still do not know the exact timetable for the withdrawal. But they are calling this announcement a turning point within NATO. All of this is much more painful than withdrawing a few thousand people from Germany.

▪️At a meeting with NATO foreign ministers on Friday, Marco Rubio explained the decision by citing US commitments in the Asia-Pacific region (APR), the Western Hemisphere, and the Middle East. He said they need to be realistic and "give the US the opportunity to prepare for a conflict on two fronts."

(Two fronts, meaning Iran and Cuba? They’re not going to fight China over Taiwan, are they, - ed.).

▪️Sources said Washington primarily wants to achieve greater flexibility in the event of a conflict in the APR. Reducing troops in Europe would make that possible, and in that case the US government does not want its military capabilities tied to NATO.

▪️German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius, during his visit to the US and Canada the other day, could not even secure a meeting with Pete Hegseth. The Pentagon chief had "other priorities" and left for a security conference in Singapore.

(This is completely fucked...)

P.S. The Poles, by the way, warned that something like this was coming.

P.P.S. Now it is clear why the Germans and the Dutch are urgently creating a new army corps to defend the Baltic states.

Spiegel

(S+) NATO: The US wants to significantly reduce its military contributions to the alliance

According to SPIEGEL information, the US government wants to keep substantially fewer weapon systems and soldiers available for NATO. Washington is thereby increasing the pressure: the resulting gaps will have to be closed quickly by the Europeans.