USS Paul Ignatius departs from Naval Station Rota in Spain for a patrol Aug. 1, 2022. Paul Ignatius is homeported at Rota under U.S. 6th Fleet. (Aaron Lau/U.S. Navy)
NAPLES, Italy — Spain agreed this week to allow two additional Navy destroyers to join those already forward-deployed to the country, an increase in firepower that U.S. commanders in Europe have long wanted.
Under the agreement, the number of guided-missile destroyers at Naval Station Rota would grow from four to six, the Spanish Defense Ministry said in a statement Monday.
One of the destroyers would deploy in 2024, and the other would arrive in Spain in “the coming years,” according to the statement. The agreement was signed by Spanish Defense Minister Margarita Robles and U.S. Ambassador to Spain Julissa Reynoso.
The Navy has not announced which destroyers it will send. Neither the White House, Pentagon nor State Department had released statements about the pact as of early Wednesday.
“Spain and the United States thus reiterate their commitment to the Atlantic alliance in this new context of the war in Ukraine and the security environment in Europe, while sharing their concern for the situation in the Mediterranean and Africa,” the Spanish Defense Ministry said in its statement.
Seaman Dyson Smith mans the rails aboard USS Arleigh Burke as the ship departs from Naval Station Rota in Spain on April 22, 2023. Arleigh Burke is on a scheduled deployment in the U.S. Naval Forces Europe area of operations. Two more Navy destroyers are expected to join four ships already homeported in the country. (Almagissel Schuring/U.S. Navy)
The agreement does not change the missions, types of forces or maximum force levels for civilian and U.S. military personnel at Rota.
The announcement comes nearly a year after President Joe Biden announced in June 2022 his intention to add the destroyers, following a bilateral meeting with Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez ahead of the NATO summit in Madrid.
The White House’s priorities also included bolstering air defense in Germany and Italy and the establishment of a permanent Army garrison in Poland.
U.S. officials have said the added ships will help keep tabs on growing Russian submarine activity from the North Atlantic to the Mediterranean.
The U.S. began deploying Arleigh Burke-class destroyers to Spain in 2014. USS Ross and USS Cook were the first ships based at Rota as part of Task Force 65.
Ross returned to the U.S. in September 2022 after eight years as part of a Navy plan to gradually rotate destroyer deployments to Rota. Cook left Spain in June 2021.
USS Paul Ignatius, USS Roosevelt, USS Bulkeley and USS Arleigh Burke are stationed at Rota. On Monday, U.S. 5th Fleet announced on Twitter that the Arleigh Burke had been deployed to its area of responsibility in the Middle East.
The destroyers, which play an important role in Europe’s missile defense, are armed with vertical launch anti-submarine rockets, Tomahawk missiles and MK-46 torpedoes.
They are designed for anti-air, anti-submarine and anti-surface warfare. The most recent versions can simultaneously carry out anti-air warfare and ballistic missile defense, according to the Navy.
