Col. Chad Manske objects to the reduction of U.S. forces in Europe:

Critics do not recognize that we have significantly reduced our forces and installations in Europe since the end of the Cold War. Of the 1.4 million current US military personnel, only 90,000 are in Europe, or about 6.4 percent. That’s less than one-third the number stationed in Europe in 1991.

I doubt that advocates of withdrawing U.S. forces from Europe don’t recognize this, but consider what he’s saying. 21 years after the dissolution of the USSR, 90,000 military personnel are still in Europe. Col. Manske says that these numbers are needed to fulfill Article V obligations, which skirts the main objection to a large U.S. presence in Europe: there is no threat to NATO members that requires it. Nearly seventy years after the end of WWII and two decades since the end of the Cold War, it is not a “retreat” if the U.S. decides to reduce or end the presence of our forces in Europe.