What does Trump’s plan to move troops out of Germany mean for the US?

After more than a year of thinly-veiled threats to start pulling US troops out of Germany unless Berlin increases its defense spending, Donald Trump appears to be proceeding with plans to cut the US military contingent by more than 25 per cent.

About 34,500 American troops are stationed in Germany - 50,000 including civilian Department of Defence employees - and the plan reportedly signed off by Mr Trump last week envisions reducing active-duty personnel to 25,000 by September, with further cuts possible.

However, as details of the still-unannounced plan trickle out, there have been growing concerns that the move will do more to harm the US' own global military readiness and the NATO alliance than punish Germany.

“The threats posed by Russia have not lessened, and we believe that signs of a weakened US commitment to NATO will encourage further Russian aggression and opportunism,”  Mac Thornberry, a Republican representative for Texas, wrote in a letter to Mr Trump with 22 GOP colleagues.

The suggestion that removing troops will punish Germany overlooks the fact that American troops are no longer primarily there for the country's defence, according to retired Lt Gen Ben Hodges, who commanded US Army Europe from 2014 until 2017.

“The troops and capabilities that the US has deployed in Europe are not there to specifically defend Germany, they are part of our contribution to overall collective stability and security in Europe,” Mr Hodges, now a strategic expert with the Centre for European Policy Analysis, said.

“What's lost in all this is the benefit to the United States of having forward deployed capabilities that we can use not only for deterrence ... but for employment elsewhere,” he added. 

“The base in Ramstein is not there for the US to defend Europe. It's there as a forward base for us to be able to fly into Africa, the Middle East.”

Mr Trump has complained that Germany does not live up to spending commitments for NATO.

Since his election in 2016, the president has pushed for a 2 per cent of GDP defence spending benchmark as a hard target and repeatedly singled out Germany as a major offender, though many others are also below the goal.

NATO figures put Germany's estimated defence spending for 2019 at 1.4 per cent.

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