The United States will withdraw roughly half of its troops from Romania, on NATO’s eastern flank, the Romanian defense ministry announced. 1,000-1,200 troops rotated out of the country earlier this month and will not be replaced, though 1,000 U.S. soldiers would continue to be stationed in Romania. That brings the total NATO presence in the country down to around 3,500, which is still “enough for our needs,” Defense Minister Ionut Mosteanu said. “The expectation of having entire foreign armies here to defend us is unrealistic. We will continue to invest in the Romanian army.”
U.S. efforts to get Europe to take more responsibility for its own defense have taken on more urgency under President Donald Trump. Historically, the Washington has encouraged “burden sharing” by asking European countries to share more of the the cost of maintaining the U.S. security umbrella. However, Jennifer Kavanagh and Daniel DePetris argued in WPR in January that a more effective path to European autonomy would be for the U.S. to focus on “burden shifting” to native European defense capabilities, while withdrawing some U.S. troops from Europe. “To implement a burden-shifting approach, instead of insisting on spending targets, Washington would give its European allies a detailed timeline mapping the reduction of U.S. forces on the continent from their current level of 100,000 to around 50,000 over the rest of Trump’s term, with further reductions planned out to 2030,” Kavangh and DePetris wrote.
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