Army M2A3 Bradley Fighting Vehicles are offloaded from a cargo vessel at the port of Alexandroupolis, Greece, in March 2024. The offload occurred during the 3rd Armor Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Divisions nine-month deployment. Rotating an Army tank brigade to Europe costs nearly $70 million more per year than basing that unit permanently in either Germany or Poland, according to new research. (Davide Dalla Massara/U.S. Army)

STUTTGART, Germany — Rotating an Army tank brigade to Europe costs nearly $70 million more per year than basing that unit permanently in either Germany or Poland, according to new research.

The findings, contained in an Atlantic Council report released Wednesday, come as debate about the future shape of the U.S. mission in Europe is likely to intensify in President-elect Donald Trump’s new term.

At the end of his first tenure, Trump sought to move 12,000 troops out of Germany, including the 2nd Cavalry Regiment in Vilseck, and send a large portion of them back to the United States. 

Pentagon officials, with a track record of favoring the flexibility and perceived efficiencies of a rotational force model, argued at the time that the loss of a combat brigade in Europe could be offset by boosting rotations to the Continent.

However, an analysis of several years’ worth of Army data comparing the costs of rotating armored brigades to Europe versus basing them there shows large savings would result from permanent overseas basing arrangements.

“Why isn’t the United States pursuing it more aggressively? That remains unclear, but politics is probably partially to blame,” wrote Army War College professor John Deni, who conducted the analysis for the Atlantic Council think tank.

The total price tag for an armored brigade’s nine-month rotation is $1.14 billion, roughly $70 million more than the cost of stationing the same unit in Germany or Poland, his report said. The latest results corroborate research he did nearly a decade ago on the same issue. 

Soldiers assigned to 1st Armored Brigade Combat Team, 1st Cavalry Division maneuver at Bemowo Piskie Training Area, Poland, in July 2024. Rotating an Army tank brigade to Europe costs nearly $70 million more per year than basing that unit permanently in either Germany or Poland, according to a new analysis. (Brett Thompson/U.S. Army)

Reasons for the higher cost include the expenses of moving troops and their gear from ports in the United States to Europe, along with predeployment training and sustainment requirements overseas.

Establishing a permanent presence also would reduce the family separations that come with long deployments and potentially send a stronger deterrence signal to Russia, Deni said.

In the aftermath of the Cold War, the U.S. military reduced its European footprint, which at one time was in the range of 300,000 troops.

Today, there are about 65,000 personnel based in Europe, with rotational forces augmenting the mission. Rotations increased following Russia’s 2014 invasion of Ukraine and the start of the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war in February 2022.

The next Trump administration will likely take numerous factors into consideration when it assesses the U.S. European Command mission.

One aspect that drove Trump’s push to pull forces out of Germany at the tail end of his first term was political tension with Berlin and frustration over Germany’s many years of paltry defense spending. 

It’s unclear whether Trump will be satisfied with Germany’s recent defense spending increases, which have put the country in compliance with NATO’s benchmark of dedicating at least 2% of gross domestic product toward defense.

Another factor that could come into play in weighing the options is the potential threat posed by China and the competition for military resources in the Pacific.

China hawks in Trump’s orbit and Vice President-elect JD Vance have argued that European countries should shoulder much more of the security burden on the Continent so that the U.S. can focus on China.

Deni argues that from a fiscal perspective, there should be little debate over the savings that could be achieved by shifting to a permanent basing model in Europe for armored units.

One obstacle could be resistance from politicians in states where the rotational troops are based, who are loath “to see their district or state lose a military unit” because of the jobs associated with it, Deni said.

But there are other drawbacks to rotations that the Army could be overlooking, he said. While advocates for the rotational approach talk up the training benefits of brigades packing up for big moves back and forth across the Atlantic Ocean, the gains could be short-lived.

Just “as rotationally deployed US troops in Europe learn the rules of the road (literally) and gain an understanding of their operating environment, their nine-month rotation ends, and they redeploy home, with most of the knowledge gained and the networks developed lost,” Deni said.