The U.S. should adopt a plan—with the most complete one offered in a landmark force posture study by Jennifer Kavanagh and Dan Caldwell—to scale back its presence in Europe from 80,000 current service members to 20,000 over the next decade. The U.S. should, as has been reported, reverse the 2024 decision by the Biden administration to deploy Tomahawk, SM-6, and other U.S. missiles in Germany. Such deployments should not just be postponed but permanently canceled in order to prioritize dwindling munitions stocks where they are most needed, encourage Europeans to ramp up the development of autonomous capabilities, and avoid feeding into a counterproductive security spiral with Russia.
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