“There’s a moving cost, and then depending on where you’re moving them to, there could be construction costs that are substantial,” said Todd Harrison, a defense budget analyst at American Enterprise Institute. “We’re not going to have facilities to house them in Poland, so that would be a very long-term construction cost” to move them.
It would also be expensive to move those troops, their families and equipment back to the U.S., given there likely isn’t available housing for them.
U.S. forces based in Germany are critical to Washington’s global military posture and nuclear deterrence. American air bases can route troops through the Middle East and Africa, U.S. military hospitals, and massive training ranges that host exercises for U.S. and NATO forces.
Previous threats to withdraw forces from Europe drew fire from congressional Republicans. But senior GOP lawmakers on Thursday were still cautious about Trump’s latest broadsides.
“We need to hear more about the strategy behind this,” said Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.). “Ramstein is a strategic, important base, so I’d have to hear more about pulling troops out of there. Maybe we need to redistribute some personnel.”
Defense legislation that became law in December bars the Pentagon from reducing total troop levels on the continent below 76,000 until it assesses the risks and certifies doing so is in U.S. security interests. Germany had appeared “pretty safe” from Trump’s threats to punish NATO nations “because it’s stepping up on a bunch of things” related to European defense, said a second congressional aide.