Washington has informed bloc members it is shifting its focus to Asia, Romania’s Ionut Mosteanu has said
The United States is scaling back its military presence in Europe as part of a broader strategy shift, Romania’s defense minister announced on Wednesday.
European NATO members were informed that the US will focus on the Indo-Pacific region, Ionut Mosteanu said during a press conference.
The minister said Bucharest learned of the US decision on Monday, but it was not a “disaster” for the Eastern European nation’s security. The Pentagon is to pull out roughly half of the 2,000 troops it currently has in Romania. The unit affected by the change has elements stationed in Bulgaria, Hungary, and Slovakia as well. Other nations such as France will continue their deployments, Mosteanu added, noting that it was “unrealistic” to expect a large foreign presence.
The US and Western European nations bolstered military forces along Russia’s borders as tensions grew following the 2014 armed coup in Kiev, which they backed. Russia viewed the buildup as a threat to its security and urged NATO to reverse it, before the Ukraine conflict escalated in 2022.
Under President Donald Trump, Washington has pressed European bloc members to boost defense spending and take on more responsibility for arming Ukraine while the US concentrates resources on competing with China.
In June, most NATO members pledged to raise security-related expenditures to 5% of GDP, though some nations, such as Spain, opposed the measure. Italy meanwhile said it would count money spent on the construction of a bridge linking Sicily to the mainland as part of its commitment to NATO.
Last week, French Armed Forces Chief General Pierre Schill told lawmakers that Paris was ready to deploy the military “as part of security guarantees, if necessary for the benefit of Ukraine.” Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) estimated such a deployment could number up to 2,000 soldiers.
Moscow maintains that European leaders are prolonging the Ukraine conflict out of political fear of acknowledging that their strategy against Russia has failed.
