Leadership: American Troops Based In East Europe
13th April 2016
If this sounds like the Cold War is returning to Europe, it is. There are other signs of this. For example the Americans are reviving the REFORGER exercises. As part of this the U.S. Army plans to store more pre-positioned military equipment in Europe and have brigades move their personnel to Europe for training with that equipment each year. The pre-positioning of equipment continued after the Cold War ended in 1991 but the annual troop movement exercises (REFORGER) to use the pre-positioned equipment stopped. Now it is being resumed with at least one brigade a year being sent to Europe to use the pre-positioned equipment for training exercises aimed at defending East Europe against Russia. Just like the Cold War, except then the Russian armies were already in East Europe before 1991 and it was Western Europe being defended.