Our heavy forces are ill-suited for Europe now that the Russians won't be marching west, but with an arc of crisis stretching from west Africa to central Asia all within range of bases in Europe, I think that we should keep a lighter corps in Europe. I argued for this a couple years ago:
American bases in Europe already provide a stepping-stone for CONUS-based forces to use to deploy to trouble spots from Angola to central Asia. The strategy of preemption places a premium on rapidly moving a decisive force to overseas theaters. Technology has made the world smaller, but distance is not irrelevant. The Objective Force’s goals are to deploy a brigadein 4 days, a division in 5 days, and 5 divisions in 30 days. Deploying from CONUS, the XVIII Airborne Corps has a long way to travel in a short time to meet the Objective Force’s deployment goals. Being closer would be of great value in meeting these time lines and objectives.
The vast region from West Africa through North Africa, the Balkans, the Middle East, to Central Asia is a large area of potential crises—and some actual ones—as when, in September 2002, U.S. forces deployed from Germany to Africa’s Ivory Coast where a mutiny threatened U.S. citizens’ safety.
We are making a mistake disengaging from Europe. We can't leave them to their own devices given the history of the last century. They need us to keep the peace. And with so many crisis areas near Europe, why would we pull farther away and rely on strategic airlift that will never be built in the numbers needed to compensate for the greater distances?
Pull most of the heavy armor out by all means, but put Stryker brigades, air mobile, and airborne units in Europe with a small amount of residual heavy armor plus brigade sets of heavy forces as a back up.
UPDATE: I meant to include this Detroit Free Press article by Joseph Galloway that mentions what the Overseas Basing Commission is thinking:
The commission members urged that at least one heavy Army brigade should be left in Europe, and equipment for another heavy brigade pre-positioned aboard ships in the theater to provide greater flexibility.
The report also expressed reservations as to whether Defense has given sufficient thought to the additional requirements that troop deployments from the United States to forward bases will place on already overtaxed Air Force transport aircraft and crews.
Europe is too important to just walk away. Keeping a corps in Europe to demonstrate our commitment is no burden when the corps is close to the arc of crisis we will likely be interested in for another generation
