Trump recently posted on social media that “The United States is studying and reviewing the possible reduction of troops in Germany”. The Pentagon then confirmed that 5,000 will leave within the next year. This came around a week after Under Secretary of War for Policy Elbridge Colby, considered to be Trump 2.0’s military-strategic mastermind, praised Germany on social media for “taking the leading role” in accelerating the transition to “NATO 3.0”. These mixed signals deserve some elaboration.
On the one hand, as Politico recently reported, it’s indeed true that “Berlin deepens military ties with Washington while Merz-Trump rift grows”. The preceding hyperlinked article importantly reports that “The U.S. military is placing a colonel in the German army’s Operations Division in an unusually close collaboration.” On the other hand, as was just touched upon, Trump and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz are also indeed in a heated feud over the Third Gulf War that likely influenced Trump’s post.
Trump might have therefore ordered this troop reduction in order to prompt the increasingly powerful military to nudge Merz into changing tack under pain of Germany losing its spot as the US’ top EU ally to Poland. About that, those two have been competing to lead Russia’s containment, but liberal Prime Minister Donald Tusk’s recently expressed doubts about the US’ loyalty to NATO risk undermining Poland’s standing vis-à-vis the US as explained here and here.
At the same time, however, conservative President Karol Nawrocki and the opposition with which this nominal independent is allied are doing their utmost to keep the US on board. One means to this end is encouraging more US involvement in the “Three Seas Initiative” as explained here. Nawrocki also presented himself as Europe’s conservative champion at this year’s CPAC, which this analysis here assessed to be motivated in part by wanting to assume this role before the AfD does.
On that topic, the AfD supports a truly sovereign Europe while PiS (Poland’s conservative “Law & Justice” party with which Nawrocki is allied) supports a Europe in de facto junior partnership with the US, which is why the first called for the full withdrawal of US troops while the second wants more US troops. Closer US-German military ties of the sort that Colby recently praised would thus lead to Trump 2.0 opposing the AfD while weaker ties of the sort that Trump threatened could increase sympathy for it.
The first expectation is self-explanatory while the second is premised on the National Security Strategy’s support for like-minded conservative-nationalists that want to avert Europe’s “civilizational erasure”. Trump 2.0 must thus decide whether it prefers to implement “NATO 3.0” through Europe’s ruling liberal-globalists or accept compromises on this policy in favor of saving Europe from itself by supporting conservative-nationalists who might oppose continued US hegemony over Europe like the AfD does.
Where Germany goes, so too goes most of Europe, so the choice that the US makes will either help or harm the AfD. The ideal balance of interests for Trump 2.0 would be to replace Germany with Poland as its top EU ally for fortifying NATO’s Eastern Flank and not oppose the AfD in the hopes that it’ll come to power and then lead Europe’s rejuvenation. If PiS returns to power in Poland, then the US could manage any future problems between AfD-led Germany and PiS-led Poland, thus ensuring regional stability.
