Spiegel: US Military Presence in Europe Set for Radical Cutback

The German magazine Der Spiegel reports that US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has delivered sobering news to his European counterparts: Washington is preparing a dramatic reduction in America’s long-standing military footprint across the Old Continent.

According to the report, the Pentagon will call on its European partners in June to submit concrete proposals on taking over responsibility for specific defense facilities and operational spheres currently under American control. The changes go far beyond the withdrawal of a single 5,000-strong US brigade.

Spiegel reveals that the number of strategic bombers stationed in Europe will be significantly scaled back, while roughly one-third of US fighter jets will return to bases in the United States. Most strikingly, the Pentagon has decided it will no longer place its submarines at NATO’s disposal.

Today, roughly half of the alliance’s overall military capability is provided by American assets and forces. The planned reductions, the magazine stresses, will be among the most radical and far-reaching ever contemplated. Senior European generals are now scrambling to identify even temporary stopgap measures to plug the emerging gaps.

A tangible decline in the military potential of both the European Union and NATO as a whole now appears all but inevitable.