We reported back in December 2020 about the confusion that Joe Biden's presidential election victory was causing in relation to the decision of his predecessor surrounding the future of several US military sites in Germany.
President Trump’s vengeful directive to withdraw some 12,000 [[US troops]] from Germany and shuffle around numerous other units elsewhere in Europe was complicating a years-old plan, first announced by the Pentagon in 2015 to return numerous military installations to the German state as it examines whether the facilities will be needed “in response to the strategic shift in the security environment,” according to US European Command, based in Stuttgart.
At the time the Pentagon had announced it had planned to shut down 15 military sites in Germany and the UK, mainly smaller outposts, as part of its cost-saving measures. EUCOM launched a review of the consolidation plan in 2017, but now, three years later, that process was still ongoing. This has led to anger and frustration in several German communities which have been keen to buy the real estate. The US currently still has about 36,000 troops stationed in Germany.
Now President Biden's Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III is reversing the withdrawal plans of President Trump, and on a recent trip to Germany earlier this month announced that the US would actually increase its presence by about 500 troops, expanding the US's footprint against a background of growing uneasiness about Russian troop movements near the Ukrainian border.
Austin said that the additional troops' mission would "“create more space, more cyber and more electronic warfare capabilities in Europe.” The fresh troops are expected to arrive in Germany in September and October, and will be bringing 750 family members, while also creating jobs for 35 local nationals. They will be stationed in Wiesbaden, now the headquarters of the US Army Europe and one of its most modern German installations, and home to about 3,000 troops and their families.
In Ansbach, Bavaria, the indecision about US withdrawals has led to tensions with local politicians following the indefinite postponement of the handing over of Barton Barracks, scheduled for this year. Local German government officials said they have well-progressed plans to support a ‘Bavarian digital campus’ on the site and build affordable housing there, with the mayor of Ansbach saying in a statement that acquiring the land to expand its local university represented a “special opportunity for Ansbach and the region.”
