{"text":[[{"start":6.9,"text":"A US decision to withdraw 5,000 troops from Germany and cancel deployment of a special long-range strike battalion gives Europe yet another reason to rue its security dependency on a reckless Trump administration. The reduction in headcount, out of 80,000 US forces in Europe, is less important than the axing of a planned task force equipped with ground-launched Tomahawk cruise missiles and experimental hypersonic missiles. That move alone will leave a crucial capability gap just as Europe’s Nato members are gearing up to take more responsibility for their defence. "}],[{"start":42.949999999999996,"text":"The manner of the announcement further weakens confidence in America’s commitment to the Atlantic alliance. It also suggests the Trump administration is not serious about coordinating a burden-shifting effort that spurs Europeans to take primary charge of their security while not leaving them more exposed to Russian attack."}],[{"start":62.3,"text":"Precision-targeted missiles and drones with a range of over 1,000km are an increasingly important offensive capability, as the wars in Ukraine and Iran have shown. An ability to destroy military facilities and defence production sites deep inside Russia rather than waiting to repel invading Russian forces would give Europe’s Nato members a powerful deterrent. It is vital that Europe acquires its own ground-launched missiles and drones and several development programmes are under way. But it will take at least five years to build up sufficient stocks. "}],[{"start":97.3,"text":"As a stopgap, the Biden administration agreed in July 2024 to deploy a long-range strike battalion to Europe, to demonstrate the US “commitment to Nato and its contributions to European integrated deterrence”. In scrapping the plan, the Trump administration is demonstrating precisely the opposite."}],[{"start":118.8,"text":"European governments are paying the price for underinvesting in its defence over decades, but in this case fecklessness is not the main issue. They were banned from deploying ground-launched cruise and ballistic missiles (but not naval or air-launched versions) under the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty. The treaty collapsed in 2019, when the US pulled out citing repeated Russian violations. "}],[{"start":145.4,"text":"The Pentagon says it decided to withdraw the troops and rescind the missile battalion last week after a thorough analysis. But it reportedly has no intention of publishing the force posture review that is customary for all new administrations. It appears to have shared no details with Congress or its allies about its plans. "}],[{"start":165.1,"text":"Its decision looks more like an act of impromptu punishment a few days after German Chancellor Friedrich Merz declared that the US was being “humiliated” in Iran. Alone among Europe’s top powers, Germany is doing what Washington wants by spending big on defence and re-arming fast. Only two weeks ago, Elbridge Colby, the Pentagon’s policy chief, endorsed Germany’s first post-second world war defence strategy in which Berlin pledged to assume a special responsibility for European security. "}],[{"start":196.1,"text":"Whether an act of retribution or an ad hoc withdrawal of forces, the US decision takes it further away from the carefully co-ordinated burden-shifting that Nato needs. America owes Europe a roadmap of how it intends to pull back its forces and capabilities and how and when its European allies should step up. "}],[{"start":215.9,"text":"Europeans may not hold much faith in any agreement with Washington these days, but it would at least help galvanise them and speed up procurement — preferably jointly — of long-range missiles, intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance, air defence and other capabilities where Europe is overly reliant on the US. Europeans are re-arming according to Nato defence plans that assume the US remains engaged in Europe. Those are already out of date."}],[{"start":247.3,"text":""}]],"url":"https://audio.ftcn.net.cn/album/a_1778113236_1530.mp3"}