US Army to add 100 fighting vehicles in Europe

The U.S. Army intends to add at least 100 fighting vehicles to Europe by the end of next year, a commander said Monday.  

The vehicles would be “pre-positioned” equipment that could be used by U.S. forces serving rotational tours in Europe, said Army Lt. Gen. Frederick “Ben” Hodges, the commander of U.S. Army Europe, according to the Military Times.

Defense officials have denied the vehicle placements are a reversal of a troop drawdown from Europe that left the U.S. without a single tank on the continent to counter Russian aggression.

Hodges said he is looking at training sites that could house the vehicles in Lithuania, Estonia, Poland, Romania and Bulgaria — nations near or bordering Russia that are concerned with the situation in Ukraine.

Hodges said he did not think Russia would invade a NATO ally, which the U.S. is sworn by treaty to protect, but said the country has been attempting to sow division between members of the alliance.

“I don’t think that Russia has any intention of some sort of a conventional attack into NATO territory because they know that would generate an Article 5 response by the rest of the alliance,” Hodges said.

“So it’s not in their interest to do that. I think that what they do want to do is to create that ambiguity, plant the seeds of uncertainty so that the alliance members lose confidence that the rest of the alliance would come to their aid if they were, in fact, attacked,” he said.