THREAD ➡️ 76 years ago today, tens of thousands of Americans, along with our allies, displayed unparalleled courage on the beaches and causeways of Normandy, beginning the long process of liberating Europe from Nazi rule.
The extraordinary sacrifices made on that day of days did not come out of thin air. In the 1930s, deterrence failed, our adversaries saw a free world unwilling to impose costs on aggression, and democracies were late to mobilize against the Nazi war machine.
The war was a terrible lesson that American needed to defend forward. No longer could we sit back across the ocean and let the storm clouds gather. In the ensuing decades, our forward presence won the Cold War by successfully deterring a Soviet invasion of Western Europe.
The National Defense Strategy rightly prioritizes these forward forces today. Rather than punish adversary aggression after the fact, the NDS emphasizes a posture of deterrence by denial, which seeks to deny adversaries their attempted conquests in the first place.
To deny, we must be forward. Our forces in Germany are a critical lynchpin of this forward presence. Not only does Germany have unparalleled supporting infrastructure, but it provides millions of dollars to help fund the US presence.
Cutting our forces in Germany not only reduces our forward presence and our ability to deter aggression in Europe, but it will end up costing us more. Troops leaving Germany will have to go somewhere, and wherever they go, they won’t have the benefit of German financial support.
We’d all like to see our allies make larger investments to support our collective defense. But this is not the way to do that. I urge the administration to reconsider this decision. google.com/amp/s/www.wsj.…
