Trump Orders 5,000 Troops to Poland, Reversing Pentagon Cut
Updated
Updated · The New York Times · May 21
Trump Orders 5,000 Troops to Poland, Reversing Pentagon Cut
10 articles · Updated · The New York Times · May 21
Trump said the U.S. will send 5,000 troops to Poland, abruptly undoing a Pentagon decision from a week earlier to cancel the deployment.
A social media post tied the move to Karol Nawrocki’s election victory in Poland; Trump had endorsed the conservative nationalist before the vote.
Pentagon officials were caught off guard and declined immediate comment, leaving open whether the military must trim forces elsewhere to meet Trump’s goal of reducing the roughly 80,000 U.S. troops in Europe.
The reversal follows three weeks of shifting Europe force plans, including a decision to pull 5,000 troops from Germany and scrap a Biden-era artillery deployment, moves that drew bipartisan warnings about signaling weakness to Russia.
What does this sudden reversal in US troop deployment signal to other NATO allies?
How does the Trump-Nawrocki alliance reshape NATO's defense strategy on its eastern flank?
With Poland rejecting EU loans, what is the true cost of its US-backed military buildup?