US Troop Pullback in Europe May Extend to Spain and Italy as Republican Leaders Warn of Signal to Russia

The Pentagon announced on May 1, 2026, that approximately 5,000 U.S. service members will leave Germany within six to twelve months — and President Trump immediately suggested the number would go "a lot further" [1]. Within hours, Trump told reporters that troop cuts in Italy and Spain were "probable," singling out both countries for their opposition to U.S. military operations in Iran [2]. The moves mark the most significant reshaping of America's European military footprint since the Cold War drawdown of the 1990s, and they have drawn sharp criticism from the Republican chairs of the two committees that oversee the Pentagon.

What Is Actually Happening in Germany

The withdrawal order covers one full brigade and cancels a Biden-era plan to station a Long-Range Fires Battalion armed with Tomahawk cruise missiles in Germany — a deployment that had been scheduled for later this year [3]. The cancelled Tomahawk unit may carry more strategic weight than the troop number implies: a European defense analyst quoted by the Financial Times said the U.S. "holds a factual monopoly inside NATO" on long-range fires capability, calling the cancellation "operationally more serious than the troop number" [3].

After the reduction, more than 30,000 U.S. troops will remain in Germany [4]. The country hosts the largest concentration of American forces in Europe, including the Army's V Corps headquarters in Wiesbaden, Ramstein Air Base — the hub for U.S. Air Forces in Europe — and Landstuhl Regional Medical Center, the largest American military hospital outside the United States [5].

Spain and Italy: What's on the Table

Trump's comments about extending cuts to Spain and Italy remain at the threat stage — no formal orders have been issued. But the president's language left little ambiguity. Asked whether he planned to pull troops, he said: "Yeah, probably will... Why shouldn't I? Italy has not been of any help. Spain has been horrible. Absolutely" [2].

Source: Stars and Stripes / DoD

Data as of May 1, 2026CSV

The stakes differ by country. In Italy, roughly 12,000 U.S. personnel are spread across bases that together form what military planners describe as "a complete joint force package for the southern theatre" [6]:

• Naval Support Activity Naples — headquarters of the U.S. Sixth Fleet and NATO's Allied Joint Force Command
• Aviano Air Base — home to the 31st Fighter Wing's two F-16 squadrons
• Camp Ederle, Vicenza — base for the 173rd Airborne Brigade, the Army's primary contingency force for Europe and Africa
• Naval Air Station Sigonella, Sicily — a logistics hub supporting some 4,000 personnel [6]

In Spain, about 3,500 service members are stationed primarily at Naval Station Rota, which hosts five Aegis-equipped destroyers that are integral to NATO's Ballistic Missile Defense system [2]. Rota also houses Europe's largest weapons and fuel depot and serves as a staging point for operations across Africa and the Middle East [7]. Morón Air Base, also in southern Spain, supports rapid-deployment operations.

The Iran Trigger

The immediate catalyst is not Russia or NATO burden-sharing arithmetic but the U.S. war with Iran. Spain refused to allow American forces to use Rota and Morón for operations against Iran and subsequently closed its airspace to U.S. military flights related to the campaign. Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez called the U.S. campaign "illegal, reckless and unjust" [8]. Secretary of State Marco Rubio responded by questioning the fundamental bargain: "If NATO is just about us defending Europe if they're attacked but then denying us basing rights when we need them, that's not a very good arrangement" [7].

A leaked Pentagon email went further, describing allied basing and overflight access as "just the absolute baseline for NATO" and floating the idea of punishing reluctant allies — including a suggestion to suspend Spain from the alliance [9]. Italy's criticism of the Iran operations was less confrontational, but Defense Minister Guido Crosetto said he "didn't understand the basis" for Trump's characterization of Italy as unhelpful [2].

Republican Pushback: Strong Words, Uncertain Follow-Through

The joint statement from Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Roger Wicker (R-MS) and House Armed Services Committee Chairman Mike Rogers (R-AL) was unusually direct. They warned that "prematurely reducing America's forward presence in Europe before those capabilities are fully realized risks undermining deterrence and sending the wrong signal to Vladimir Putin" [10].

The two chairmen proposed an alternative: rather than bringing troops home, move the 5,000 to NATO's eastern flank, closer to Russia [10]. They also insisted that "any significant change to U.S. force posture in Europe warrants a deliberate review process and close coordination with Congress and our allies" [11].

What they have not done — at least not yet — is introduce legislation or threaten to hold up defense spending bills. This stands in contrast to the 2020 standoff, when Trump ordered roughly 12,000 troops out of Germany over disputes about defense spending and the Nord Stream 2 pipeline. That year, Congress acted decisively: the House Armed Services Committee voted 49-7 to bar the administration from lowering troop levels below existing thresholds until the Pentagon certified to Congress that withdrawals would not harm U.S. or allied interests [12]. The provision was included in the NDAA, and the withdrawal never took effect. President Biden formally reversed the order after taking office [12].

A statutory guardrail already exists for the current situation. The 2026 NDAA includes a provision barring permanent reductions of U.S. troop levels in Europe below 75,000 [13]. With approximately 100,000 U.S. personnel currently across the continent, a drawdown of 5,000 from Germany alone would not breach that floor — but combined reductions across Germany, Italy, and Spain could approach the threshold and trigger a constitutional confrontation between the executive and legislative branches.

The Burden-Sharing Picture

The administration's broader argument — that European allies must spend more on their own defense — has some factual basis but is more complicated than the rhetoric suggests.

Source: NATO Defence Expenditure Report 2025

Data as of Jun 1, 2025CSV

As of 2024, Germany spent 2.12% of GDP on defense, exceeding NATO's longstanding 2% benchmark for the first time since reunification [14]. Germany's defense minister, Boris Pistorius, said the country is on track to exceed 3% of GDP by next year [4]. Italy stood at 1.57% and Spain at 1.49% — both below the 2% target, though both have increased spending significantly since Russia's 2022 invasion of Ukraine [14].

At the 2025 NATO Summit in The Hague, allies committed to a new target of 5% of GDP on defense by 2035, with at least 3.5% earmarked for military spending [15]. Wicker and Rogers referenced this goal directly, arguing that European allies need time "as they move toward spending 5% of GDP on defense" and that withdrawing American forces before that transition is complete would leave a dangerous gap [10].

Poland, which spent 4.27% of GDP on defense in 2024, has been held up by both the administration and its congressional critics as the model for what European allies should look like [14]. Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk expressed alarm at the Germany withdrawal, seeking assurances about continued U.S. support on NATO's eastern flank [1].

What Military Capabilities Are at Risk

Defense analysts have been specific about what would degrade. Bradley Bowman of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies said the U.S. military's presence in Germany and the rest of Europe "not only strengthens deterrence against additional Kremlin aggression but also facilitates the projection of American military power into the Mediterranean, the Middle East, and Africa" [16]. In other words, these bases serve American strategic interests far beyond European defense.

The cancelled Tomahawk battalion is a particularly pointed loss. The Biden administration had announced the deployment at the 2024 NATO Summit as a direct response to Russian missile threats — the first land-based intermediate-range missiles in Europe since the end of the Cold War [3]. Cancelling it removes a deterrent that Europeans cannot currently replace on their own, given that no European NATO member fields a comparable land-based long-range strike system.

In Italy, the 173rd Airborne Brigade at Vicenza is the Army's only airborne infantry brigade permanently stationed outside the United States, capable of deploying anywhere in Europe, Africa, or the Middle East within 18 hours [6]. The Sixth Fleet headquarters in Naples commands all U.S. naval forces in the European and African theaters. Reducing either would have cascading effects on U.S. force projection.

At Rota, the five Aegis destroyers are not merely a Spanish concern — they provide the naval component of NATO's missile defense shield, designed to intercept ballistic missile threats from Iran and potentially Russia [2]. Removing them would require either relocating the ships to another port or accepting a gap in missile defense coverage over southern Europe.

The Case for Withdrawal

Not all analysts oppose the reductions. Some strategists have long argued that maintaining Cold War-era force levels in Western Europe is an expensive anachronism. The estimated direct U.S. cost of its military presence in Europe was $35.8 billion in 2018, roughly 5.6% of total national defense spending [17]. Adjusted for inflation and force growth since 2022, the current figure is likely higher.

Proponents of redeployment argue that European allies are now wealthy and capable enough to handle their own conventional defense — particularly given the post-2022 surge in spending. Senior Pentagon officials have advocated realigning forces toward the Indo-Pacific, where they see China as the primary strategic competitor [16]. The logic is straightforward: every brigade tied down in Germany is a brigade unavailable for contingencies in the Taiwan Strait or the South China Sea.

Some defense thinkers also argue that modern long-range strike capabilities — precision-guided munitions, hypersonic weapons, and extended-range air power — reduce the military value of geographic proximity. Under this view, forces based in the continental United States can project power to Europe rapidly enough that permanent forward basing is less critical than during the Cold War.

However, critics counter that this argument confuses capability with credibility. The physical presence of U.S. troops in Europe serves a political deterrence function that cannot be replicated by bombers flying from Missouri — it signals to both allies and adversaries that an attack on NATO territory will automatically involve American casualties and therefore an American response.

Russia's Calculus

Wicker and Rogers framed the withdrawal as sending "the wrong signal to Vladimir Putin," but the evidence for how Moscow is actually interpreting these moves is limited. Russia has long demanded the removal of NATO forces from its borders, particularly in the Baltic states, Poland, and Romania. Kremlin officials have historically characterized NATO's eastward expansion as a threat, and Russian state media has covered NATO base expansions extensively [18].

The withdrawal from Germany — located in Western Europe, far from Russia's borders — is strategically distinct from a hypothetical drawdown on NATO's eastern flank. Moscow may welcome the political friction between Washington and its European allies more than any specific military recalculation. The cancellation of the Tomahawk deployment, however, removes a capability that Russian military planners had specifically identified as a threat.

No verifiable evidence — in the form of Russian troop movements, revised doctrine, or diplomatic communications — has surfaced to indicate that Moscow is adjusting its strategic posture in direct response to the announced withdrawal. The "signal to Russia" framing, while politically potent, remains largely speculative at this stage.

Legal and Treaty Constraints

The president has broad authority over troop deployments as commander in chief, but that authority is not unlimited. U.S. basing rights in Spain are governed by the Agreement on Defense Cooperation, originally signed in 1953 and updated multiple times, most recently in 2015 [19]. Italy's basing arrangements operate under a bilateral Memorandum of Understanding signed in 1995, layered atop the NATO Status of Forces Agreement [20]. Both are executive agreements that do not require Senate ratification to modify, but changes to force posture would require coordination with host governments.

Congress holds the power of the purse. The 2026 NDAA's 75,000-troop floor in Europe provides a statutory check [13]. Additionally, a law passed in 2023 — originally sponsored by Marco Rubio, now secretary of state — requires two-thirds Senate approval or an act of Congress to withdraw from NATO itself [13]. While troop reductions short of alliance withdrawal fall below that threshold, Congress could attach similar conditions to future defense spending bills, as it did in 2020.

The host nations also have leverage. Spain's refusal to allow base usage for Iran operations demonstrated that basing rights are a two-way negotiation — the U.S. cannot compel access for operations the host government opposes [8]. If Washington pushes too hard on troop withdrawals framed as punishment, allied governments may become less cooperative on other security matters, creating a self-reinforcing cycle of disengagement.

What Comes Next

The Germany withdrawal has a defined timeline of six to twelve months. The potential expansions to Italy and Spain remain presidential rhetoric without formal Pentagon orders. Congress has the tools to intervene — it used them successfully in 2020 — but whether Wicker, Rogers, or other defense hawks will move from statements to legislation remains an open question.

Germany's response has been notably measured. Defense Minister Pistorius called the withdrawal "anticipated" and pivoted to Europe's need to assume greater responsibility for its own defense [4]. This reaction — acknowledging reality rather than protesting it — may signal a broader European shift toward strategic autonomy that, ironically, aligns with the Trump administration's stated goal even as allies dispute the method.

The deeper question is whether a transatlantic alliance built on permanent American forward presence can survive its transformation into something more transactional — where basing rights, defense spending percentages, and support for specific military campaigns become bargaining chips rather than shared commitments. The answer will shape European security for decades.