Oil tumbles, stocks rise as fragile Israel
05:05
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Global oil prices tumbled for a second day while stocks rose sharply, as a ceasefire between Israel and Iran remains in place despite earlier violations. Meanwhile, the German government approves a draft budget which will sharply increase its defence spending as leaders arrived for a key NATO summit.
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Euronews
an hour ago
- Euronews
Will Trump really pull US troops out of Europe?
History may repeat itself, but not always with the same impact. In 2012, when then-US defence secretary Leon Panetta announced the withdrawal of two combat brigades - roughly 8,000 troops - from Europe in order to reduce military spending, western European governments shrugged it off. When US president Donald Trump mused this year about withdrawing US forces from Europe, it sent barely concealed shockwaves through European chancelleries. The difference: Panetta at the time said America's security commitments to Europe and to NATO were "unwavering". By contrast, Trump has threatened not to protect NATO members that spend too little on defence. And his own vice president and defence secretary made disparaging comments about European allies in a now-infamous group chat earlier this year, with defence chief Pete Hegseth expressing his 'loathing of European free-loading', according to the Atlantic magazine. Get the difference? On the eve of the NATO summit in The Hague this week, the chatter about the US military leaving Europe for good has somewhat subsided. Yet, European diplomats do fear an announcement by Trump after the summit. The Pentagon did not immediately respond to a Euronews request for comment. Reason enough to hear from top US military experts whether they think a massive US troop withdrawal is on the cards and what the impact of such a move would be for the United States – logistically, financially and politically. First in line is the US ambassador to NATO, Matthew Whitaker, a lawyer by education, whose task has increasingly tended to soothing nervous European allies. 'Look, European security is on top of my mind,' he said at a recent public forum in Brussels. 'America needs allies, we can't do it all alone. And the reports on the US drawing down its troop presence are absolutely not true. Everything else we will discuss with our allies.' Right now, the US has nearly 84,000 active service members in Europe, according to the US European Command (EUCOM) in Stuttgart. The total number varies due to planned exercises and regular rotations of troops in and out of the continent. For example, following Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, some 20,000 were deployed to states neighbouring Russia, Belarus, and Ukraine to support Ukraine and contain the conflict. Over the course of the war, the total number of troops has ranged between approximately 75,000 and 105,000 military personnel, primarily from the Air Force, Army, and Navy. The bulk of those troops is stationed in Germany (40,000), Poland (14,000), Italy (13,000) and the UK (10,000) with the rest scattered across the continent from Norway to Turkey. The practical logistics of a US withdrawal from Europe, such as redeployments to the US or elsewhere, would be significant and time-consuming. 'If this were to happen in a systematic manner, it would take many months, probably at least a year,' Mark Cancian, a retired colonel and senior advisor at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington, told Euronews. 'The entire equipment, every tank, needs to be prepared and shipped. Then the families of the soldiers need to be shipped and finally the service members themselves,' he added. 'All in all, a quarter of a million people might be impacted, maybe more.' The biggest problem would be where they might go. 'Current bases in the US could absorb 5,000 people, maybe 10,000,' Cancian said. 'But the rest? It would take years to build new facilities.' Whether Trump would decide something of that strategic and political magnitude the effects of which would only almost certainly be seen beyond his presidential term is more than doubtful, according to Ian Lesser, a senior political analyst at the German Marshall Fund (GMF), a transatlantic think tank. 'We already saw an attempt by Trump to withdraw a sizable force from Europe during his first term, which only met considerable resistance from the security community in the US and was eventually shelved by President Biden,' Lesser told Euronews. The US Congress would also have to approve the withdrawal, which is not certain given the number of defence hawks, especially in the Senate. A recent bipartisan draft proposal by Republican Lindsey Graham and Democrat Richard Blumenthal on tougher anti-Russian sanctions reportedly has the backing of up to 90 of the 100 senators. 'Trump has no desire to look weak. But a dramatic reduction of the American military footprint in Europe would do exactly that to him,' Lesser said. In addition, a large part of the US forces in Europe are not members of combat brigades, which typically consist of about 5,000 soldiers each, but support troops who man a huge military infrastructure, especially in Germany. Historically, Ramstein Air Base, for instance, and its neighbouring Landstuhl Regional Medical Center, the largest American hospital outside the United States, played a key role in supporting forward military operations, especially in the Middle East. 'It would make little sense to announce plans to withdraw US troops from Europe the moment there is an escalating war happening between Israel and Iran,' former US ambassador William Courtney told Euronews. 'And it would probably lead to massive criticism,' added Courtney, an adjunct senior fellow at the RAND Corporation, a global think tank. And then there are Trump's efforts to mediate in the war in Ukraine. 'Trump viewed a US troop withdrawal in connection with his strong hopes for an end of the war and improved relations with Moscow. Yet, it turned out there is no basis for that, no possibility, the negotiating positions of Russia and Ukraine being too far apart,' Courtney said. Were US troops to be withdrawn, Europe would have to replace the entire military infrastructure currently provided by the US at all levels, according to a study by the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) based in London. That means bases, training areas, weaponry and ammunition, administrative and organisational architecture, intelligence provisions and much more. This comes with a hefty price tag: the nine authors of the IISS study estimate that replacing the US contribution to NATO with European assets would amount to approximately $1 trillion (€870 billion). It's not clear what the cost of a US troop withdrawal would mean for the US taxpayer. None of the experts quoted in this article was ready to advance a number. That's one reason none of them considered such a decision as very likely. 'No way,' Daniel Runde told Euronews, a senior advisor with Washington-based consulting firm BGR Group and author of The American Imperative: Reclaiming Global Leadership through Soft Power. 'Trump will absolutely not do it. His aim is to get the Europeans to spend 5% of their GDP on defence. Then he will move on.'
Euronews
2 hours ago
- Euronews
This crewless ship is defending Denmark's and NATO's waters
As maritime tensions have increased since Russia's 2022 invasion of Ukraine, Denmark is investing big in defence tech. The Danish Armed Forces has announced it is deploying four uncrewed surface vehicles (USVs), dubbed 'Voyagers,' to boost surveillance capacity in under-monitored waters. They will be patrolling in Danish and NATO waters in the Baltic Sea and the North Sea for three months, according to the Danish Armed Forces. 'The security situation in the Baltic is tense, and therefore it has been decided by Danish parliament and the Danish government to improve the capabilities of Danish defence, and this includes the maritime domain and of course this includes our maritime domain awareness,' said Kim Jørgensen, the director of the Danish National Armaments. Powered by solar and wind energy, they can operate autonomously for months at sea. Drones are mounted on these 10-meter-long vessels and artificial intelligence (AI) helps analyse data of the surrounding environment under and above the surface of the ocean using advanced sensors. "So, the vehicles [work] like a truck. The truck carries the sensors and we use on-board sophisticated machine learning and AI to fuse that data to give us a full picture of what's above and below the surface," said Richard Jenkins, the founder and CEO of Saildrone, the company that makes the ships. The firm said the autonomous sailboats can support operations such as illegal fishing detection, border enforcement, and strategic asset protection. Denmark invests big in defence According to a report published in 2024 from the Export and Investment Fund of Denmark, EIFO, one of the country's investment agendas lies in defence in light of the new geopolitical landscape. The unmanned surface vehicles were purchased through a $60 million (€51,70 million) investment round led by EIFO. The four Voyagers will be first in operation for a three-month trial, as Denmark and NATO allies aim at extending maritime presence, especially around critical undersea infrastructure such as fibre optic cables and power lines. NATO and its allies have increased sea patrolling following several incidents, such as the Nord Stream pipeline sabotage in 2022, the Balticconnector gas pipeline burst in 2023, and undersea cable damage in the Baltic Sea in 2024. Its developer, Saildrone, is establishing its European headquarters and operational hub in Denmark's capital, Copenhagen. The American company says the new subsidiary will be the hub for all European operations. For more on this story, watch the video in the media player above.
France 24
2 hours ago
- France 24
UK to reintroduce nuclear weapon-capable aircraft under NATO
The country will purchase 12 nuclear weapon-capable F-35A fighters, expanding the country's deterrence arsenal, which is currently limited to submarine-launched missiles. "These F35 dual capable aircraft will herald a new era for our world-leading Royal Air Force and deter hostile threats that threaten the UK and our Allies," Starmer said in a statement on Tuesday. NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte was quoted in the statement as saying: "I strongly welcome today's announcement," calling it "yet another robust British contribution to NATO". Downing Street described it as the "biggest strengthening of the UK's nuclear posture in a generation", adding that Starmer would announce the plan at summit on Wednesday. Since the end of the Cold War, British nuclear deterrence within the Atlantic alliance was provided solely by missiles aboard Royal Navy submarines. Heloise Fayet, a nuclear specialist at the French Institute of International Relations (Ifri), told AFP the announcement illustrates "the continued re-nuclearization of Europe, the renewed need for nuclear weapons, and the strengthening of NATO's deterrence, in the face of an adversary, Russia". The F-35A, manufactured by US company Lockheed Martin, is a variant of the F-35B already used by the United Kingdom, but which can carry nuclear warheads in addition to conventional weapons. The acquisition has been a long-standing request from the Royal Air Force. The planes are expected to be stationed at Marham Air Force Base in eastern England. - 'New risks'- Leaders from NATO countries are gathering in The Hague this week where they are expected to pledge that they will spend five percent of GDP on defence by 2035, under pressure from US President Donald Trump. The UK had already committed on Monday that it would meet the spending target. London said in February that it would hike its defence budget to 2.5 percent of GDP by 2027 and three percent after 2029. British Defence Secretary John Healey warned on Tuesday that the UK faced "new nuclear risks, with other states increasing, modernising and diversifying their nuclear arsenals". Seven NATO members, including the US, Germany and Italy, currently have dual-capable aircraft stored on European soil that can carry American B61 nuclear warheads -- the same type that Britain is expected to use. In June, Britain announced that it would build up to 12 new attack submarines and six munitions factories as part of efforts to re-arm the country in the face of "threats", particularly from Russia. The dozen nuclear-powered subs will be equipped with conventional weapons and form part of the AUKUS military alliance between the UK, the US and Australia. Starmer also confirmed that London would spend £15 billion ($20.4 billion) on its nuclear warhead programme.
