I take exception to one point in your June 29 editorial, "Fund US Deterrent Programs." Your opening statement asserts that the countries of Eastern Europe and the Baltics "welcome" the forward positioning of an assortment of 250 tanks, armored personnel carriers and howitzers.
In reality, US troop and equipment withdrawals from Europe and NATO now say to Europeans that reinforcement beyond a handful of tanks is questionable. US armor has disappeared, as has artillery, from German bases. Troop strengths have declined by 85 percent since the height of the Cold War, and anti-armor attack and assault helicopters have been and are being removed, to include A-10 attack aircraft, embedded to counter the ever-increasing tank forces of Russian armies.
A decade ago, the key to rapid reinforcement of NATO was strategic airlift capable of inserting troops and weapon systems in a sequence bolstering forward-based combat units. Today, C-5 cargo aircraft have been halved in operational numbers, and some key C-17 units have been inactivated. Reinforcement of NATO by the US is now to the European on the street a credibility issue, hurled to the front burner by Putin's recent annexation of the Crimea; invasion of the Ukraine; his $400 billion rearmament program; rapid deployment of tactical forces to counter NATO exercises; aircraft overflights challenging NATO nations' airspace; and sightings of Russian submarines loitering off Helsinki.
We offer in response continued major reductions in personnel and armor, limited rotational aviation unit training at brigade level in Estonia, Poland, Latvia and Lithuania as a show of force. Extended transnational road marches by brigade-sized units from north to south, intended to convince Europeans we still have a presence and capability to help defend them, is all but bizarre.
All this, while in town after European town, US forces are fewer and fewer; and the capability to rapidly reinforce has greatly diminished due to Obama administration demands for reductions in military capabilities, and congressional budget cuts and caps from sequestration. Basically, we've pulled our strength out of Europe, and the former grand US plan to reinforce NATO with strategic airlift now says we have neither capacity nor will to get troops and equipment back rapidly, if and when needed.
The message is clear to Europeans that we have pivoted to the Pacific and Asia, and with a commander in chief believing that the Cold War is "over," there is little need for US bulk forces on the continent any longer.
While some mix of 250 tanks, artillery and personnel carriers may be "welcome," our message in a broader sense is, "It's your fight, Europe. We're gone, with little to no intent to re-engage."
This may satisfy the administration, and the dove caucus on Capitol Hill, but it also makes clear how few understand how our own security is inextricably tied to that of Europe, a Europe now facing a new variant of the Cold War, and a super-power nation with a leader bent on restoring Russian hegemony.
Matthew R. Kambrod
Leesburg, Va.
