Germany urges Europe to step up as US plans 5,000-troop drawdown

Germany's defense minister called on European nations to bolster their own security Friday after the Pentagon announced plans to withdraw 5,000 U.S. troops from Germany over the next 6 to 12 months.

The Pentagon also cancelled a Biden-era plan to deploy Tomahawk cruise missiles to Germany — a decision that has drawn concern from Republican lawmakers and European leaders who warn the move risks weakening NATO deterrence against Russia at a moment of heightened transatlantic tension.

German Defence Minister Boris Pistorius said Friday that the partial withdrawal was expected and pressed Europeans to meet the challenge head-on. "We Europeans must take on more responsibility for our own security," Pistorius said, according to The Korea Times. He added that "Germany is on the right track," pointing to Berlin's plans to expand the Bundeswehr from 185,000 to 260,000 active-duty soldiers.

The Pentagon's plan calls for the departure of one full brigade over 6 to 12 months and cancels the scheduled deployment of a long-range fires battalion later this year. The decision affects operations at Ramstein airbase and Landstuhl hospital. Nearly 40,000 U.S. military personnel are currently stationed in Germany — a presence that dates to the post-World War II occupation.

The cancellation of the long-range missile deployment drew particular alarm. Christian Moelling, director of European defence think tank EDINA, wrote on X that the U.S. "holds a factual monopoly inside NATO" on long-range fires, underscoring what analysts regard as a significant gap that European nations are not yet equipped to fill.

Republican leaders in Congress pushed back sharply. Senate and House armed services committee chairs Roger Wicker and Mike Rogers said in a joint statement, reported by The Korea Times, that "prematurely reducing America's forward presence in Europe before those capabilities are fully realized risks undermining deterrence and sending the wrong signal to (Russian President) Vladimir Putin."

Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk voiced alarm in a post on X. "The greatest threat to the transatlantic community are not its external enemies, but the ongoing disintegration of our alliance. We must all do what it takes to reverse this disastrous trend," Tusk wrote. Peter Beyer, a foreign policy official from Chancellor Friedrich Merz's CDU party, questioned whether the move reflected any coherent strategy. "Against this backdrop, both the troop withdrawal and the trade policy seem less like the expression of a coherent strategy and more like a political reflex and a reaction born of frustration," Beyer told Reuters.

The withdrawal came amid broader friction between Washington and Berlin. President Donald Trump separately threatened 25% tariffs on EU auto imports following disagreements with Merz over Middle East strategy.

Officials have provided no details on where the departing troops will be redeployed. The U.S. military presence in Germany began as a post-World War II occupation force and peaked during the 1960s at the height of Cold War tensions on the European continent.