Still, the discussion by Carafano is useful. And I'm all on board this:
For starters, the U.S. needs a bigger continuous footprint in Europe. Instead of the current three brigades, four would make more sense. The U.S. also needs a forward-deployed higher headquarters—like a corps-level command.I wanted a corps to remain in Europe in this old Military Review article (see pages 15-20), and I still think that is a good idea.
I remain torn in this new era of great power competition over whether the corps should be a heavy one to fight in Europe or a more deployable one able to also extend its reach to an arc of crisis from West Africa to Afghanistan.
Maybe a parachute brigade, an up-gunned Stryker brigade, and three armored brigades as part of a corps (plus prepositioned stocks) would be good.
But I'd also pay good money to replace one of the heavy brigades with a true honest-to-God armored cavalry regiment for the Baltic states.
Certainly remember that modern Russia is not USSR in its ability to pose a threat to Europe. The USSR could threaten the alliance and break the West in Europe. Short of mass use of nukes, Russia can only make relatively small territorial gains (but can they hold them?) without posing an existential threat to the West.
UPDATE: I don't care where the new 4th corps headquarters is based in America. What I'm happy about is that forward elements will be based in Europe:
The Army has said the new corps headquarters will include more than 600 soldiers based in the U.S. and will maintain a rotational command post of about 200 troops in Europe.
Great power competition in Europe requires the ability to command larger number of formations.
