Commander of U.S. European Command asks to increase U.S. rotational forces in Eastern Europe 0411144

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Defence & Security News - United States
 
 
Tuesday, November 4, 2014 03:24 PM
 
Commander of U.S. European Command asks to increase U.S. rotational forces in Eastern Europe.
The top U.S. general in Europe wants to increase U.S. rotational forces in Eastern Europe and stockpile more military equipment across the continent in response to continued agressive moves by the Russian military.
     

     

Air Force Gen. Philip Breedlove spoke to reporters at the Pentagon on Monday after a spate of tense confrontations involving Russian military aircraft flying in unusually large formations in the airspace of America’s European allies.

More than two dozen Russian fighter jets and bombers recently have veered into the airspace of NATO nations from all directions, including the Black Sea to the southwest, the Baltic Sea to the northeast, over Great Britian to the northwest and also over NATO’s southwestern flank along Portugal’s Atlantic coast. In each case, NATO aircraft intercepted the Russian planes and the incident was resolved “professionally,” Breedlove said.

The Russian air incursions are the latest in a series of aggressive moves that began earlier this year with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine’s Crimea region. In response, the U.S. and its NATO partners have launched a series of exercises and security procedures to reassure the alliance’s newest partners in Eastern Europe.

In October, the U.S. Army deployed 600 U.S. soldiers from the 1st Cavalry Division at Fort Hood, Texas, on a 90-day mission to Eastern Europe. The soldiers are training with M-1 Abrams tanks and Bradley Infantry Fighting Vehicles in Poland, Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia, which Breedlove described as “a first for many of these countries.”

About 68,000 U.S. troops are now in Europe, down from a Cold War-era peak of more than 350,000 in the 1980s.

Breedlove said the current size of the permanent U.S force in Europe is “just right,” but he added that EUCOM will need to supplement that with “an increase in rotational presence” of forces from garrisons back home, including possibly reserve forces.

Breedlove also suggested that more reservists may be deploying to Europe. He is working with the National Guard Bureau “to keep a strong pressure on our state partnership programs, which are absolutely key and essential to what we do in Europe,” he said.

In addition to potentially more people, Breedlove said he wants to deploy more heavy military weaponry and equipment that would improve EUCOM’s ability to respond to a crisis and surge combat power if needed.