Donald Trump will withdraw 5,000 American soldiers from Europe. Specifically from Germany, and those troops will not be relocated to any other European country, as had been considered with Poland as one of the possible destinations.
"As expected, we also discussed the recent decision by the United States to withdraw an armored brigade from Europe. I would like to emphasize that this decision does not affect the execution capability of our regional plans," stated the supreme NATO commander in Europe, Alexus Grynkewich. This is the highest representation of the United States in the Alliance.
The words of the Saceur, as this position is known by its acronym in English, also confirm that the troops will not stay in another country. This was a possibility that had been considered, with Poland as a possible destination. But as pointed out by Grynkewich, it means that those soldiers will directly leave the continent.
What the American official has not addressed, nor have the Italian Admiral Cavo Dragone or the French Vandier, are the long-range missiles that the United States was supposed to deploy in German territory this year. Previous administrations of both countries had agreed on this, but Trump's punishment of Friedrich Merz also led to the suspension of that deployment.
And this is very important because among those missiles are the Tomahawk and they represented a very important deterrence weapon against Russia. The current situation, therefore, is that Germany, and consequently Europe, is left without this important and powerful weapon.
Spain rejects a European army
On the other hand, Italian Cavo Dragone, who is the number one in the military structure of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, has ruled out the European army advocated by the Spanish Government of Pedro Sánchez. "We cannot think of a European army. It is an oxymoron or nonsense because NATO does not have its own army. In addition, each nation maintains sovereignty over its armed forces, so they are the ones who decide what to do with them. What they do is provide NATO, as force providers, with what we need," he stated.
"We must understand the European Union as the European pillar of NATO. But again, if the EU carries out any kind of military activity, it will use the same set of armies that NATO has. That is why we must talk about the European pillar of NATO, that's basically it," he emphasized. In other words, the Alliance does not contemplate its own European army or a NATO-Europe, which is something that is increasingly being considered in the European capital. Simply, a greater role for the EU in the Alliance.
All these statements were made on the same day that a NATO plane shot down a Ukrainian drone in Estonian airspace. "The fighters of the Baltic air security mission were also in the air, and in this case, Romanian F-16s shot down this drone between Võrtsjärv and Põltsamaa," stated the Latvian Government.
Subsequently, Kiev denounced that, through electronic interference, Russia redirects Ukrainian drones to Baltic countries. The Ukrainian government apologized to Estonia and the other Baltic nations, territories that have been violated in recent days by Ukrainian drones.