Doug Bereuter: “our colleague from Washington has it right, this is a drastic proposal. We have seen some burden-sharing amendments here…”

“our colleague from Washington has it right, this is a drastic proposal. We have seen some burden-sharing amendments here in the past, but this is draconian. I am shocked by it. As a matter of fact, I chair the delegation to the NATO Parliamentary Assembly, and so I follow NATO issues carefully, as do many of my colleagues who are here involved in this debate. I think this proposed reduction over 3 fiscal years is simply bad national security policy. The U.S., as mentioned, is not in Europe to protect European interests, but to defend American national interests. Our borders are more secure because we kept the threat far from American shores through our worldwide forward-based military presence. The real threat to our interests is broad, such as the potential conflict in Korea or southwest Asia where U.S. vital interests lie. The U.S. recently completed a reduction in Europe of our troops from the 320,000 to 100,000 level. I would ask the question, is this really sufficient to protect American interests there? It probably is. But if you reduce it systematically to 25,000, the practical effect is we cannot have even one combat division in Europe under those numbers. Our vital security interests in Europe and globally have not been delineated since the end of the Cold War, but I think it is incumbent on us to understand what our interests are before we begin additionally modifying our force posture in Europe or anywhere else.”