Some US troops cite benefits of Germany presence as Trump threatens pullback

At a U.S Army training facility in Germany on Thursday, some senior officers highlighted the benefits of American presence in the country, a day after U.S. President Donald Trump said he was reviewing whether to reduce troop numbers in the country.

The benefits of U.S. troops here include deterring adversaries, combat training with allies on European terrain and absorbing lessons from nearby Ukraine , they told Reuters and a small group of other media visiting the U.S. Army’s only combat training center outside the U.S., located in Hohenfels, southern Germany.

The handful of officers who spoke either did not comment on President Trump’s remarks, or declined to.

Spokespeople for the U.S. Army did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment on how a troop reduction would impact activities in the country.

Germany is the U.S. military’s largest footprint in Europe, with some 35,000 active-duty military personnel, and serves as a key training hub.

That includes the Hohenfels facility, which spans some 163-square kilometers of forest. The area hosts large-scale combat training for U.S. troops as well as other NATO and partner nations.

On Thursday, a U.S. armored unit was a week into a grueling 10-day long exercise, which included evading an opposing force and its arsenal of surveillance and attack drones.

The brigade is at the end of a nine-month deployment in Poland and elsewhere in Eastern Europe as part of a U.S. Army-led initiative to support NATO while building readiness and enhancing bonds between ally and partner militaries.

Their presence in Europe shows potential adversaries that in the event of a conflict “that they’re going to face the most ready, trained, lethal fighting force, and not just the United States, but the United States and its NATO allies,” said the brigade’s commander, Col. Michael Ziegelhofer.

“The fact that we’re out here represents, you know, really our country’s support for NATO and our allies,” he said.

Training with other nations is “incredibly important,” said Ziegelhofer, standing on the edge of a small mock town. “If a crisis were to take place over here, we’d be in the fight together, so training like this helps us to build the interoperability, not just with the equipment that we have, but between the people and the systems and the processes in our unit.”

The brigade has also been learning about drones during their deployment in Europe, added Ziegelhofer.

“We worked all the way from learning how to fly them to getting pretty sophisticated in understanding the systems and processes,” he said, “both in using them ourselves and how to counter the enemy’s use of those since we’ve been over here.”

The evolution of drones and electronic warfare are among the lessons from the Russia-Ukraine war being incorporated into training, said Lt. Col. Michael Cryer, commander of the opposition forces permanently assigned to Hohenfels training area, known as the “warrior” battalion.

“It’s been a cat-and-mouse game, as you’ve seen in Ukraine,” he said. “Where one side develops this capability, another side develops a countermeasure.”

One of the biggest challenges, according to the officer, is maintaining options for offensive maneuvers while being constantly surveilled by aerial drones.

“It is nearly impossible to hide,” Cryer said. “Across the Army, we haven’t totally come to grips with that.”

周四，在德国的一个美国陆军训练基地，一些高级军官强调了美国在德国驻军的好处。此前一天，美国总统唐纳德·特朗普表示，他正在考虑是否减少驻德美军人数。

他们告诉路透社和其他一小群参观位于德国南部霍亨费尔斯的美国陆军唯一海外作战训练中心的媒体，驻扎在这里的美军的好处包括威慑对手、与盟友在欧洲地形上进行作战训练以及吸取邻国乌克兰的经验教训。

少数几名发言的警官要么没有对特朗普总统的言论发表评论，要么拒绝发表评论。

美国陆军发言人没有立即回应路透社关于裁军将如何影响该国活动的置评请求。

德国是美国在欧洲最大的军事存在地，拥有约 35,000 名现役军人，并且是重要的训练中心。

其中包括霍亨费尔斯基地，该基地占地约163平方公里，位于一片森林之中。该地区是美军以及其他北约和伙伴国家军队进行大规模作战训练的场所。

周四，一支美国装甲部队正在进行为期 10 天的艰苦演习，演习内容包括躲避敌方部队及其侦察和攻击无人机的攻击。

该旅在波兰和东欧其他地区进行了为期九个月的部署，这是美国陆军领导的一项旨在支持北约、同时增强战备能力和加强盟国与伙伴国军队之间联系的倡议的一部分。

该旅指挥官迈克尔·齐格尔霍弗上校表示，他们在欧洲的存在向潜在对手表明，一旦发生冲突，“他们将面对最准备充分、训练有素、最具杀伤力的战斗力量，而且不仅仅是美国，而是美国及其北约盟国。”

他说：“我们来到这里，代表着我们国家对北约及其盟友的真正支持。”

齐格尔霍弗站在一个模拟小镇的边缘，说道：“与其他国家进行联合训练极其重要。如果这里发生危机，我们将并肩作战，因此这样的训练有助于我们建立互操作性，不仅是我们现有装备之间的互操作性，还包括我们部队人员、系统和流程之间的互操作性。”

齐格尔霍弗补充说，该旅在欧洲部署期间也一直在学习有关无人机的知识。

他说：“我们从学习如何驾驶这些飞机开始，一路学习，逐渐深入了解它们的系统和流程，包括我们自己如何使用它们，以及自从我们来到这里以来，如何应对敌人使用这些飞机的情况。”

驻扎在霍亨费尔斯训练区、被称为“战士”营的反对派部队指挥官迈克尔·克赖尔中校表示，无人机和电子战的发展是俄乌战争中吸取的教训之一，并被纳入了训练中。

他说：“正如你在乌克兰看到的那样，这就像一场猫捉老鼠的游戏。一方发展出这种能力，另一方就会发展出相应的反制措施。”

据该军官称，最大的挑战之一是如何在不断受到空中无人机监视的情况下，保持进攻行动的选择权。

“几乎不可能隐瞒，”克莱尔说。“在整个陆军，我们还没有完全解决这个问题。”