The Army think tank, reacting to the current consensus that our Army won't be needed for any large-scale operations any time soon, argues we need to stay in Europe so that--rather than prompting the Europeans to reduce their dependency on our forces--we can leverage European capabilities and make sure they can operate with our forces:
America’s forward-based military forces in Europe play a critical role today in shaping the capabilities of allied military forces. Given the necessity of capable, interoperable coalition partners for the future security threats Washington most expects to encounter, the role of America’s forward military presence in Europe remains as vital as it was at the dawn of the Cold War, but for different reasons. Unfortunately, continuing calls to withdraw even more U.S. forces from Europe threaten to undermine Washington’s ability to develop and maintain capable, interoperable coalition partners.
This is true, no doubt. But I continue to believe that we have to remain in Europe--with capable rather than token Army forces--in case we need to use American ground power. Europe remains a springboard for deploying throughout an arc of crisis from West Africa to Pakistan.
We may not like to think about really needing the Army. But that's how it usually works out when the world gets obviously imperfect.
