Report: US mulls moving troops from Germany to Poland?

The Pentagon is analysing the costs and potential implications of a large-scale withdrawal or transfer of American troops stationed in Germany, the Washington Post has reported.

According to the newspaper, the assessment follows growing tensions between US President Donald Trump and German Chancellor Angela Merkel, and one of the redeployment scenarios is a full or partial move of US troops in Germany to Poland.

Trump earlier this year expressed an interest in removing the troops during a meeting with White House and military aides, the Washington Post reported, citing US officials it did not name.

But the paper said a Pentagon spokesman has dismissed any suggestion of a full or partial withdrawal from Germany and described such analysis as routine.

Trump was said to have voiced surprise that 35,000 American soldiers were stationed in Germany and complained that NATO countries in Europe were not contributing fairly to joint security or paying enough to NATO, the Washington Post reported.

Poland, meanwhile, has met NATO's defence spending targets and has a leadership that is "more in tune with Trump," the paper said.

According to the Washington Post, Poland has in recent months proposed spending at least USD 2 billion to obtain a permanent US army base.

A senior security official in Warsaw said in June that Poland was interested in hosting US troops on a permanent basis.

Amid fears of Russian aggression following Moscow's annexation of the Crimea region of Ukraine in 2014, NATO decided at a Warsaw summit in July 2016 to deploy four rotating multinational battalions to Poland and the Baltic states.

The Washington Examiner monthly magazine earlier this year ran an opinion piece arguing that President Donald Trump should relocate US military forces in Germany to Poland.

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Source: IAR, washingtonpost.com