WSJ
Published on: Nov 03, 2025 06:21 am IST
Pulling back a combat brigade from Romania is a bad message for Putin.
It’s a safe bet that most Americans won’t notice if the U.S. pulls an Army brigade out of Romania, but you can bet Vladimir Putin will. Behind a reshuffling of U.S. forces abroad is a larger debate within the Trump Administration about America’s posture in the world, and senior Republicans in Congress are expressing alarm.
The U.S. Army confirmed last week that soldiers from a brigade combat team of the 101st Airborne Division will return to Kentucky “without replacement.” Romania’s defense ministry called the decision “an effect of the new priorities of the presidential administration”—that is, the Trump Pentagon. About 1,000 troops will remain in the country, and the U.S. footprint in Romania is a small share of the roughly 85,000 troops on the continent.
But the U.S. is trimming combat power from NATO’s eastern front as Mr. Putin’s military escalates his drone incursions and other tests of the Western alliance and refuses to settle his war in Ukraine. The decision earned a rebuke from GOP hawks in Congress who support the President and aren’t known for picking futile showdowns.
The decision “sends the wrong signal” to Mr. Putin, Republicans Sen. Roger Wicker and Rep. Mike Rogers, chairmen of the Senate and House Armed Services committees, said in a statement. Romania, the lawmakers noted, is a reliable ally that has hosted a U.S. missile defense detachment since 2016. The chairmen want assurances the Administration intends to maintain two armored brigades in Poland.
Mr. Trump may not know it, but some of his advisers in the Pentagon want an even broader pullback from Europe. That would make it harder for President Trump to negotiate a durable peace in Ukraine. What America needs is more of its forces in Europe moving east to the Baltics, not west to the U.S.
Messrs. Rogers and Wicker are giving the President sound counsel that this is no time to go wobbly on deterrence in Europe.
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