It seems as if we are hedging our bets a bit about pulling forces back to the continental United States (via Stand-To!):
Under a broad plan to reconfigure US military forces in Europe, as few as three Army combat brigades, or about 35,000 soldiers, would remain there – a major downsizing from the roughly 62,000 US soldiers stationed there as recently as 2005.
That, at least, will be the recommendation of an internal study conducted for the head of US European Command and NATO forces in Europe, Gen. Bantz John Craddock, who had asked for a "troop-to-task" assessment of forces in the European theater. The assessment is expected to recommend that a fourth brigade based in the United States be deployed to Europe on a "rotational" basis, for exercises and other operations.
My proposal called for five ground combat brigades to remain in Europe, which would have retained our post-Desert Storm strength (two divisions of two brigades each with the divisions' third brigades back home, plus a parachute brigade. But instead of heavy forces to defend Europe we'd have more deployable forces to use Europe as a launching pad. I also anticipated that we'd rotate Stryker units to Eastern Europe for exercises.
This new plan puts us at four brigades, including one based in America that would rotate units to Eastenr Europe for training. Unless not all of these brigades are ground combat brigades, this could work fine.
