Jennifer Kavanagh, director of military analysis at the Washington-based Defense Priorities think tank, said the reductions would create gaps that would be particularly difficult to fill rapidly for some types of military assets, including submarines and strategic bombers.
But European allies should not seek to replace them like-for-like, she argued. “The important thing with these U.S. withdrawals is not that Europe matches what is lost but [that] Europe figures out what it really needs to defend itself and procure those capabilities,” Kavanagh said. “Across the board Europe can do this within five years.”
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