Lawmakers ripped into Army leaders on Friday, asking why the service this week canceled the imminent deployment of a brigade combat team to Poland.
But Army Secretary Dan Driscoll and acting Chief of Staff Gen. Christopher LaNeve had few answers about the decision. It wasn’t theirs, LaNeve told lawmakers at the House Armed Services Committee hearing.
The general said Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth had ordered U.S. European Command boss Gen. Alexus Grynkewich to reduce forces.
“I’ve worked with [Grynkewich] in close consultation of what that force unit would be, and it made the most sense for that brigade to not do its deployment in theater,” he said.
The cancellation, which was first reported by Military Times, means that the number of U.S. troops in Europe will drop below the legal mandate of 76,000 if the Pentagon completes its recently announced withdrawal of some 5,000 soldiers from Germany.
That led HASC Chairman Mike Rogers, R-Ala., to threaten the Defense Department.
“It is not the fault of the people in front of us today that we’ve had this apparent deviation, but know: we are going to mandate that the department follow the statutory minimums that are set in statute on force posture,” Rogers said. “And if there are attempted deviations, we will remedy them and impose a pain when—if—they aren’t complied with.”
The number of U.S. troops in Europe reached 100,000 after Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine, but more recently has hovered around 80,000, according to the Council on Foreign Relations.
Multiple lawmakers expressed dismay Friday about the lack of transparency from the Pentagon about the reason for the canceled deployment, as well as the message it sends to European allies and Russia’s Vladimir Putin.
“If our adversaries are paying attention, is the cancellation of a deployment of a brigade combat team sending again the opposite signal in terms of our commitment to our allies in Eastern Europe?” said Rep. Joe Courtney, D-Conn. He pointed out that Poland is spending just under the 5 percent of its GDP, as suggested by NATO and urged by President Donald Trump since his first term.
A Pentagon spokesman declined to say why the deployment of 2nd Armored Brigade Combat Team, 1st Cavalry Division, was cancelled.
Joel Valdez also declined to say whether the cancellation was related to the Pentagon’s May 1 announcement that it would withdraw 5,000 troops from Germany. That move came as Trump lashed out against European allies reluctant to help escort ships through the Strait of Hormuz during the the U.S. war on Iran.
“The decision to withdraw troops follows a comprehensive, multilayered process that incorporates perspectives from key leaders in EUCOM and across the chain of command,” Valdez told Defense One on Friday. “This was not an unexpected, last-minute decision, and it would be false to report it as such.”
But it surprised members of Congress, who expect to be notified about force-posture changes ahead of time.
Poland’s leaders were also blindsided, according to Rep. Don Bacon, R-Neb., who said he’d spoken to Polish officials on Thursday.
“These are some of our best allies, and they had no idea,” Bacon said.
Valdez also declined to say why the deployment was cancelled.
Last fall, the Pentagon canceled an Army deployment to Romania, with similarly thin explanations and backlash from Congress.
Canceling a rotational deployment is more straightforward than removing troops based in a foreign country, which is the case for most of the troops in Germany, who are accompanied by their families.
Over the past decade, the Army has replaced thousands of soldiers who previously spent a handful of years living in Germany with rotational deployments throughout Europe.
Recent moves to cut U.S. presence in Europe echo an even bigger slashing of troops in Germany that Trump ordered during the final months of his first term.
In that case, DOD went through the motions of planning for a withdrawal, but the plan was ultimately dropped when Trump lost his bid for reelection.
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