The U.S. Defense Department is re-examining a decision to reduce the size of U.S. military troops based in Europe amid the continued Russia-Ukraine conflict, DoD News reported Tuesday.
Nick Simeone writes Air Force Gen. Philip Breedlove, NATO’s supreme allied commander for Europe, said he spoke with DoD leadership about sequestration-related troop drawdown.
âBecause those sequester decisions were clearly made before Russia-Crimea, I see this building now moving towards a review of those decisions,â Breedlove told reporters Tuesday.
The number of U.S. armed forces across Europe has decreased from several hundred thousand soldiers to almost 64,000, most of whom are assigned in Germany, according to the publication.
DoD has also been deploying rotational forces to Poland and the Baltic states in response to security concerns in eastern Europe, Simeone reports.
âI am very emphatic that we should cease further decrease of forces in Europe,â Breedlove added, according to Simeone’s article.