The U.S. military operates too many bases in Europe. To be fair, it also operates far too many bases in the United States. But because many in Congress put pork before country, unnecessary bases won’t be shuttered for the foreseeable future.
European base closures offer an alternative area to save money without sacrificing strategic capability or upsetting the parochial preferences of porkers. While the Department of Defense needs a range of staging and training bases across the European continent, the scale of its current basing presence is absurd. By combining units in Europe on fewer bases, the Pentagon could save billions of dollars over a ten year budgeting period.
And there are a lot of U.S. military personnel in Europe; just under 100,000 in total and over 35,000 in Germany alone!
But which bases should be closed?
Well, for a start, many of those in Germany.
The best strategic decision would be to relocate the U.S. military’s ludicrously large deployed presence in Germany into a couple of super-bases in Poland. In 2018, Poland is a better ally than Germany and more strategically important to NATO’s defensive posture.
But Germany is just the start. Other major bases that could also be closed include the Aviano air base and Caserma Ederle garrison in Italy and Chièvres Air Base in Belgium.
While the Pentagon’s European Command will whine about these closures, once their capabilities are shifted into other European bases, they’ll have little reason to complain. Indeed, the 173rd Airborne Brigade based at Caserma Ederle might, for example, be better located in Britain so that it could perfect interoperability with Britain’s 16 Air Assault Brigade at Colchester.
Regardless, the need for action is real.
The U.S. military needs a lot of money to protect the nation, but that money must be spent wisely.
In an era of renewed Russian aggression centered on insurgency and evolved blitzkrieg strategies on the NATO periphery, it makes sense to station U.S. forces closer to the prospective front line. Yes, it’s true that preparing to defeat a Russian invasion also requires the U.S. retain its major war-fighting resupply posts such as the naval base at Rota, Spain, and its various air bases in Britain and Turkey.
But that doesn’t require us to ignore an opportunity for greater military efficiency.
