In recent days, the Pentagon under President Trump has demonstrated its intention to reduce America’s presence in Europe. The Pentagon canceled the rotation of the 2^nd Armored Brigade Combat Team, 1^st Cavalry Division in Poland, right after it decided to reduce troop presence in Germany and to close the Norfolk NATO training base, shifting them to France.

These are delayed but correct decisions, and they come under the category of presidential prerogatives. Congressional criticism of troop retrenchment or relocation from Europe is beside the point. Consider that these debates are not new, but that the president, as commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces, has the authority to carry out this policy.

Moreover, American pressure on Europe not only caused them to increase their defense spending but also to improve their force postures and local coordination. Germany’s decision to establish the 45^th Panzer Brigade in Lithuania, consisting of roughly 5,000 troops, reflects a significant shift in European defense policy toward forward deployment. The United States currently stations close to 80,000 troops throughout Europe, including the 20,000 recently added by President Joe Biden in response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

In my view, only three pieces of real estate are important to America’s strategic interests. Greenland for the Arctic, Germany for the European continent, and Turkey for the Mediterranean and Black Sea. Germany remains the central logistical and operational hub for American military power on the continent, housing essential command structures, transportation infrastructure, and supply networks that support operations across Central and Western Europe. Turkey likewise occupies a uniquely important position, potentially serving as a forward platform for operations extending into the Middle East and the Eastern Mediterranean. By contrast, Spain, Italy, Poland, and Romania, while tactically useful, hold less long-term strategic significance. A coherent policy of partial retrenchment would therefore preserve the core infrastructure in Germany and Turkey while gradually reducing peripheral commitments elsewhere.

The principal danger lies in mistaking retrenchment for simple relocation. If troops removed from Germany are merely transferred eastward into Poland or the Baltic republics, the United States would not truly be reducing its commitments but rather repositioning them in a way that intensifies tensions with Russia while discouraging Western European states from investing in their own military capabilities. Forward deployments in Eastern Europe effectively serve as implicit security guarantees, reducing the incentive for Europe’s largest economies to undertake meaningful defense expansion themselves. After all, we want the rich Western European nations to spend more to secure the rest of Europe. Guarding their eastern frontier with American muscle defeats the purpose.

The Trump administration’s National Security Strategy and National Defense Strategy, as well as other strategic documents, have repeatedly emphasized the need for greater burden-sharing among these allies. Burden shifting, therefore, is no longer a mere theoretical concept but an emerging policy direction that is already producing measurable results. The broader logic of burden-shifting rests on the premise that the United States should gradually reduce its direct military presence in relatively stable regions while encouraging capable allies to assume primary responsibility for local security. Europe represents perhaps the clearest case for such a transition, given its advanced economies, technological sophistication, and substantial latent military capacity. 

By reducing the number of American forces guaranteed to be available, Washington should create stronger incentives for European governments to increase defense spending, deepen military coordination, and expand independent operational capabilities. Conversely, maintaining or enlarging forward deployments in Eastern Europe risks perpetuating a system in which European states continue to rely on American protection rather than developing strategic self-sufficiency. This dynamic is particularly counterproductive at a moment when Germany, Europe’s largest economic power, increasingly signals its willingness to assume a leadership role in continental defense.

There is a simple historical template to follow. At the conclusion of the Cold War, the United States maintained more than 300,000 troops in Europe. During the 1990s, however, that figure was reduced dramatically to roughly 60,000 personnel. This period, incidentally, was also the last time the U.S. managed to balance the budget. 

Redeploying forces eastward would weaken the benefits of retrenchment while, in fact, entrenching the very dependencies the policy is intended to overcome. Instead, the United States should preserve its essential strategic hubs in Germany and Turkey, gradually reduce less vital commitments elsewhere, and encourage the development of independent European military power, particularly in Germany.

Such an approach would align with existing American strategic doctrine, reinforce allied responsibility, and allow the United States to allocate its resources more effectively amid intensifying global competition. “If in 10 years, all American troops stationed in Europe for national defense purposes have not been returned to the United States, then this whole project [NATO] will have failed,” President Eisenhower said in 1956. We have long passed that deadline, and it is long past time to shift Europe’s strategic burden to Europeans.