Washington and 5000 Virtual Troops

On Thursday, Donald Trump announced on Truth Social that due to Poland having elected a president he liked (although that happened over a year ago, but Trump is almost 80, so let’s not be too harsh) 5,000 American troops would be deployed to Poland as a contribution to the security of NATO’s eastern flank. This seemingly contradicted earlier plans announced by the Pentagon not to return 5,000 troops to Poland after their rotation.

The timing around the confusion about the lost or returned American troops however was telling — it happened just on the eve of the meeting of NATO foreign ministers in Helsingborg, Sweden. The last time a meeting like this happened was December 2025, and back then Secretary of State Marco Rubio was conspicuously absent — he sent a deputy. This time Rubio was present. It would seem Washington had an agenda, and placating Europeans with an additional troop deployment was necessary to advance it.

What was missing in December was not just American interest in NATO, but also war in the Middle East. In December, Washington did not yet need anything from Europe. Having got stuck in Iran, Washington has been trying to engage Europe in unblocking the Strait of Hormuz to no avail. Rubio was dispatched to try to change their minds.

Withdrawing troops from Europe as a punishment and then sending them there again fits Washington’s transactional approach to ‘close allied relationships’. Earlier this month, Trump, having taken umbrage at German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, declared the reduction of American troops in Germany by 5,000 men. Around the same time, a further deployment of several hundred troops was cancelled along with the long-awaited deployment of long-range missiles to Germany.

With this in mind, the newly declared deployment of 5,000 troops to Poland might seem like a positive development — until we factor in Polish Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski’s statement that after the new deployment Poland will host roughly the same number of US troops as before. In other words, nothing really changed.

So what was this virtual troop movement all about?

Officially the US was to discuss an increase in defence spending, unblocking the Strait of Hormuz, and the use of European air bases for American operations in the Middle East. Even before the meeting, other NATO foreign ministers stated that their countries were going to get involved in securing the Strait of Hormuz… once conditions allowed.

Rubio was obviously shipped off to Helsingborg to try to strongarm Europe into helping the US in the Middle East. While the earlier decision on the troop withdrawal from Germany looks like a bog-standard display of Trump’s wrath at Europe, and the cancellation of the missile deployment might be the result of the US war in Iran (the Pentagon may need them elsewhere), the refusal to rotate troops in Poland and then their miraculous deployment seems like a carrot and stick intended, if not exactly to bring Europe to heel (Washington is beginning to realise that pushing Europe around does not elicit the right response) then at least to get it much closer to the US position.

While the withdrawal of troops can hurt Europe to a certain extent, it is not the number that matters — it is the show of support from Washington, and sadly it is not forthcoming. The White House seems hell-bent on demonstrating its indifference to all things European. In this light, the deployment of Tomahawks to Germany was going to be the next best thing — if Europe cannot rely on Washington, it can at least rely on the hardware to hit choice targets in Russia if push came to shove. Even that option is now under threat.

With both political and military support by the US withdrawn from Europe, Rubio’s trip to Sweden seems very naïve. Washington was genuinely hoping to blackmail Europe into helping the US with Iran. It expects Europe not to notice that US support vis-à-vis Russia has been withdrawn, and any promises can be cancelled by a single post on Truth Social. Yet Washington seems to believe that it can talk or force Europe into engaging with the Middle Eastern crisis while at the same time hoping to hoodwink Europe on security. Or maybe Washington has taken a leaf out of Russia’s book and thought to offer thin air in exchange for European actions.

Although Europe is still balancing between outright opposition to Washington and the need for defensive technologies, it is no longer playing the sycophantic game with Trump. It knows full well Trump’s America is not an ally, and it will not get involved in Trump’s problems, since Trump is not interested in Europe’s problems. And dragging a few thousand US troops around Europe virtually or physically is not going to change that.