BRUSSELS — NATO’s top military commander on Tuesday said he did not expect further U.S. troop withdrawals soon, as allies privately pressed him to plug the gap created by Donald Trump’s move to pull thousands of soldiers from Europe.
“The deployments that we have so far are all that’s been announced — it’s all that I’m expecting in the near term,” NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander Europe Gen. Alexus Grynkewich said in response to a question from POLITICO on Tuesday.
“We should expect there to be a redeployment of U.S. forces over time as [European] allies build their capacity,” he told reporters in Brussels, noting that the “ongoing process” would take “several years.”
Trump this month said he would pull at least 5,000 soldiers out of Germany after growing frustration at German Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s criticism of the war in Iran.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth blindsided Poland last week by canceling an upcoming deployment of 4,000 rotational troops.
In response, the alliance’s 32 members have tasked Grynkewich with finding European replacements for the soldiers and military equipment, according to two NATO diplomats and one person familiar with the matter, who were granted anonymity to speak freely on the sensitive matter.
The decision to pull a specialized long-range missile unit from Germany has drawn particular concern. Given “we’re not able to replace the capabilities if they’re withdrawn,” said one senior NATO diplomat, “I’m sure SACEUR … will do everything possible to mitigate any gaps.”
Grynkewich, who was in Brussels for a regular meeting of the alliance’s 32 top generals, said he was in “constant contact” with allies to “go over what some of the options were and how we might array capabilities on the eastern flank.”
The Pentagon has not publicly spelled out reasons for the drawdown, and Polish officials are in Washington to get a better sense of U.S. thinking. Polish Defense Minister Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz talked to Hegseth on Tuesday.
“The process of redeploying U.S. military forces and assets in Europe is ongoing, but no decision has been made to reduce U.S. military capabilities in Poland,” Kosiniak-Kamysz said in a post on X. “The decisions being made are in no way directed against our strategic partnership. The Pentagon is currently preparing a new plan for the deployment of its forces across Europe.”
‘Blurred’ picture
In practice, the two U.S. announcements will be part of the same drawdown, according to two people familiar with the matter, with the ultimate aim of reducing troop numbers in Germany.
The 4,000-strong 2nd Armored Brigade Combat Team, 1st Cavalry Division, will no longer deploy for a nine-month stint to Poland, one of the people said, with the idea that some troops may eventually be replaced by those now stationed in Germany.
The cancellation of the specialized missile unit makes up the remaining 1,000 troops covered by Trump’s original announcement.
“There will be 5,000 troops coming out of Europe,” Grynkewich said, adding: “I’d like to emphasize this decision does not impact the executability of our regional plans.”
Yet the U.S. decision will still take a toll on NATO. While the drawdown affects just 3 percent of American troops stationed in Europe, it “could affect U.S. deployments to the Baltic states as well,” said Jennifer Kavanagh, director of military analysis at the Defense Priorities think tank, since the U.S. contingent in Poland feeds troops to the region.
While replacing U.S. soldiers could be done “within a year at most,” she said, the brigade’s “heavy assets such as tanks and Stryker vehicles … will be harder to replace in the near term with identical capabilities.” Substituting the German missile unit could take “five years,” she said.
For now, it remains unclear whether working out how to replace the U.S. troops would be decided as part of NATO’s next four-year defense planning cycle or more rapidly, the same person said.
Allies could also make decisions at NATO’s biannual Force Generation conferences, where national military officials discuss deployments and capabilities, according to a senior NATO diplomat and a third person familiar with the matter.
“It’s quite blurred,” the diplomat said.
