By Will Porter
The House Armed Services Committee asked the Pentagon to estimate the cost of making what are now “rotational forces” in Europe permanent, chairman Rep. Mac Thornberry said Monday.
Over the last year, the U.S. has made multiple deployments of ground troops to Eastern Europe, where they have participated in military exercises and fulfill a support role in other NATO operations. Those soldiers are deployed on an over-lapping, rotating basis.
Rep. Thornberry said the Committee wants to see how the costs of rotational forces compare keeping units stationed in Europe long-term, with the aim of reassuring allies over concerns about Russia.
“I don’t know what the cost data will show,” Thornberry said. “I’m not convinced that it is tremendously cheaper to rotate a bunch of units through rather than have that permanent presence.”
In January, as part of a NATO build-up U.S. soldiers arrived in Poland and spread out into other Eastern European countries to participate in various exercises and operations. In the last year, the Army has planned or carried out at least 11 military exercises in Europe:
• Saber Strike, a long-standing U.S.-Europe cooperative training exercise meant to improve joint interoperability of the 13 participant nations (Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Luxembourg, Norway, Poland, Slovenia, the United Kingdom and the United States.)
• Flexible Leader, an exercise conducted last year in Germany designed to train EURCOM staff to work with U.S. personnel in humanitarian assistance operations.
• Swift Response, an airborne crisis response exercise carried out last summer that focused on training the U.S. Global Response Force to conduct operations alongside allied airborne forces in Europe.
• Saber Guardian, an exercise planned for this summer in Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria that will involve more than 25,000 service members from over 20 nations. It will be the largest of the exercises in the Black Sea region.
• Saber Junction, an exercise designed to assess the readiness of the U.S. Army’s Stryker-based 2nd Cavalry Regiment to conduct unified land operations, conducted April 25-May 19 of this year. It involved over 4,500 participants from 13 countries (Albania, Bulgaria, Georgia, Italy, Kosovo, Lithuania, Macedonia, Poland, Romania, Slovenia, Ukraine the United Kingdom and the United States).
• Anakonda, carried out last year and involved 31,000 service members from 24 nations.
• Rapid Trident, conducted last summer and involved 2,000 personnel from 14 countries.
• Allied Spirit, which took place March of this year in Southeastern Germany and involved approximately 2,770 participants from 12 nations, 1,520 of them American.
Add to that list Combined Endeavor, Combined Resolve, Cooperative Resolve, Immediate Response and Noble Partner and you’ve got a veritable flurry of military activity on the European continent.
The troop rotations began in November, when the Army announced it would begin sending armored brigade combat teams to Europe to join American bases and personnel that have been stationed on the continent since the end of the Second World War.
Despite the huge U.S. military presence in Europe, it apparently is not enough.
“There is a tremendous interest in Eastern Europe for a more permanent presence,” Rep. Thornberry said.
It remains to be seen whether or not U.S. troops will have an officially-admitted permanent deployment in Europe, but even if they did, it likely will not change much about the prevailing situation. The American military, as showed in part above, already maintains a de facto permanent presence on the continent and will continue to do so regardless of what the House Committee decides.
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Contributed by Will Porter of The Daily Sheeple.
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If they’re worried about costs. Permanently rotate them back to the United States. Then discharge them.
Europe is planning to form a singular one-nation military consisting of the Euro Nation / States.
Hence, the U.S., Great Britain, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Korea, Japan, Taiwan and Singapore should unite as a singular Defense Force, and merge the economies!
I tried to do some research on your suggestion of a one nation military consisting of the countries you listed. This is a theory, correct? Could you lead me to more info on this? i appreciate it. Well, my take on this is that if your comment is true then the allies are forming for what could become a third world war in the future. Not good.
Planning is one thing… paying for it is another, and at the current rate the euro is collapsing, they’ll be lucky if they don’t beat the USA to the poor house porch.
One can only imagine what they really have? Who is it for? My guess is that everything is a show for our consumption.
My guess is, and I have zero inside information, that all the world players are on the same side and the propaganda is for public consumption.
What does that mean?
My guess is the Cabal who are few, know they are running out of time. To many people get it now.
They have built up massive technology to fight us to save themselves. Remember, we are useless eaters and in many cases if not most they are spot on.
I read many of the comments on these sites and most are reactionary to the agenda they set up for us. We are all being played for the fools we are.
True. Its not a nice picture you paint but accurate enough.
E U has too many foreigners already – they don’t need no more. How about sending them to Japan in order to help stop Fukushima from leaking. Let’s send them in the world to do something – Positive.
Good Idea! The Governments in Europe did their best to disarm the Citizens who can no longer afford Taxation to keep Standing Armies. Who really wants thousands of Foreigners in their Country armed to the teeth. We are not at War with anyone. America is!
American forces have occupied Europe since the end of WW2 in 1945 under the guise of NATO.
Pretending to stop Communist Russia that doesn’t exist anymore.
And I thought WWII ended 72 years ago. But that’s what I was wondering about when I was stationed at Bitburg AB in Bitburg Germany in the early 1970’s as by that date WWII had been ended 30 years prior. These insane warmongers still practicing their dark arts need to be jailed to protect the rest of us …sane citizens from their evil warmongering ways. It’d certainly be less expensive for those citizens paying the taxes as well as it would be morally superior to the military industrial complex’s solution which is the continuation of the same.
Bitburg :
.
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/af92fe7f0485405a4e92e070caba35488b61eab24c00807cd1e576f3ccf11d96.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/04c02bdd8ff3ef038c099978ab0703c86c3b39ec2aa30dfdfdb93a395c67c0da.jpg
God that seems like whole lifetime ago. Bitburger Pils – now there’s some…skunky beer. The airbase has been redeveloped since the US pulled out of there but when I was there that was the “largest NATO airbase (they told us) in Europe”. The bomb dump was impressive too with hundreds of acres that looked like a PGA golf course. How’d they do that?? With large flocks of sheep complete with shepherds and dogs. Did you know there is a cemetery there where several SS troops are interred?? Ronald Reagan got in some trouble for going there during one of his state visits. Anyway, for the most part I enjoyed my two years there in the early and mid 1970’s…
Europe must defend itself as we have set that bar for many other countries. If Europe likes its freedom, let it fight to defend or succumb.
WWII never finished, at least not officially
The Good Ol’ USA… riding the debt wave to oblivion.
Hey, this sounds like my house…