US European Command chief: Germany drawdown is ‘on freeze’ amid review – By Sebastian Sprenger (Defense News) / Feb 3 2021
COLOGNE, Germany – All planning related to the Trump administration’s reduction of troops from Germany is on hold while new Pentagon chief Lloyd Austin reviews the idea, according to U.S. European Command chief Air Force Gen. Tod Wolters.
The announcement follows hints by the new Biden administration that the decision to pull up to 12,000 troops out of Germany would be scrutinized by the new Pentagon team. Leaders in Berlin were caught off guard by the move last summer, as was the U.S. military chain of command, and officials here took being kept out of the loop as much as an affront as the actual drawdown itself.
All of the moves already put in to motion under the Trump plan, which includes relocating the headquarters of EUCOM and U.S. Africa Command from Stuttgart to Mons, Belgium, are “on freeze,” Wolters told reporters in a phone press conference Wednesday.
To be sure, it isn’t clear that any moves have taken place at all. Some observers have privately remarked that the military chain of command appeared to be slow-walking the implementation of the Trump administration’s surprise decision, which the then-president himself had admitted was hatched partly out of anger toward Germany.
