The Cost of a Hasty Exit
A RAND study warns that how the U.S. withdraws from Europe matters as much as whether it does — and the defense industry will feel it.
By The Defense Desk
Germany is home to some 35,000 active-duty U.S. military personnel, more than anywhere else in Europe, and a brigade combat team now in Germany will be pulled out of the country. [2] Trump's Wednesday announcement that he was reviewing U.S. troop levels in Germany surprised German military officials who spoke to Reuters, citing what they called constructive meetings at the Pentagon earlier in the day. [2]
That episode — abrupt, politically charged, poorly telegraphed — is precisely the scenario a new RAND study warns against. Released Wednesday, "Anticipating Allies' Responses to U.S. Retrenchment from Europe" examines how France, Germany, Poland and the U.K. would likely respond to different versions of what RAND calls limited retrenchment: cuts to American commitments and forces in Europe that stop short of leaving NATO altogether. [1]
The report's central finding is deceptively simple: it is not the fact of withdrawal that determines allied behavior, but the manner of it. The four allies "see a stark difference between a coordinated, orderly U.S. withdrawal, which they feel they could handle, and a rapid, uncoordinated one, which they see as creating major capability gaps and potentially emboldening Russia to attack a NATO member," the authors wrote. [1] Process, in other words, is strategy.
What makes the report land with such weight is the timing. The theoretical and the actual are now hard to separate — defense reviews, political ruptures, and troop announcements are arriving faster than allied capitals can absorb them.
About 80,000 U.S. troops were stationed in Europe across roughly 30 bases as of 2025, according to congressional testimony from the head of U.S. European Command cited in the RAND report. [2] Then in June, the U.S. cut the forces it would make available to NATO in a crisis. [1] A broader review of U.S. [1]
The Germany withdrawal illustrated the dynamic RAND most fears: decisions that demonstrate, as the authors put it, that U.S. troop levels and commitments rest on "abrupt, easily reversible decisions." [1] The Pentagon said recent German rhetoric had been "inappropriate and unhelpful," and a senior official said "the president is rightly reacting to these counterproductive remarks." [2] In May, the Pentagon abruptly canceled a planned deployment of about 4,000 soldiers to Poland; Warsaw credited the reversal partly to reminding Washington that Poland is a "model ally" that buys U.S. systems. [1] President Trump later pledged to send 5,000 troops at an unspecified date. [1]
The market for trust, it turns out, works a lot like the market for weapons. Confidence built over decades can erode in a quarter. And when it does, the contracts follow.
That is the RAND report's sharpest commercial warning. The U.S. supplied 58% of the major weapons European NATO members imported from 2021 to 2025, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute — down from 64% in the institute's previous five-year count. [1] A rapid, uncoordinated withdrawal would push that figure lower still. "Such a shift would be detrimental to the U.S. defense industrial base, which benefits from exports that help create economies of scale," the report said. [1] Crucially, the authors argue that "the main cause of this shift would be perceptions of U.S. reliability as an ally rather than the loss of any specific U.S. military capabilities." [1]
The country-by-country breakdown is instructive. In the U.K., a sudden withdrawal would "accelerate the UK's reorientation away from U.S. defense equipment toward sovereign or European alternatives," interviewees told RAND. [1] German purchasing has long been partly political: Berlin has bought U.S. arms partly to keep Washington committed to Europe, and a rapid exit would suggest that approach had failed — meaning Berlin "may not see a benefit to continuing to privilege U.S. firms for arms sales or other deals." [1] Germany plans to spend €649 billion on its military over five years, raising spending from 2.4% of GDP in 2025 to 3.5% by 2029. [1] That is a substantial procurement pipeline pointing in a direction that could shift.
France, by contrast, presents a different calculus. Paris is already "the most committed of the four allies to reducing reliance on the United States," the study said, meaning a sudden U.S. pullout would likely have little impact on French purchasing decisions. [1] Yet French officials told RAND their military would still depend on U.S. forces for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance; long-range precision strike; fighter jets; air and missile defense; command and control; and logistics — in any wartime scenario. [1] Until France can fill those gaps, a hasty American exit would be read not as a strategic handoff but as abandonment. [1]
Poland sits in its own category — the ally most exposed and most eager to spend. It has more than doubled defense spending as a share of GDP since 2014 and is aiming for 5% of GDP this year. [1] All four allies have committed to NATO's target of at least 3.5% of GDP for core defense spending by 2035, according to the alliance's 2025 summit declaration. [1] France and the U.K. will struggle to get there — French public debt rose from 98% of GDP in 2019 to an average of 112% from 2020 to 2024, and one interviewee called the budget problem France's "Achilles' heel" in rearming. [1] The U.K. Ministry of Defence asked for an extra £28 billion to cover a shortfall through 2030 and received £15 billion. [1]
RAND's report situates all of this within NATO 3.0, the alliance concept Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Elbridge Colby presented in February, which calls for Europe to take primary responsibility for its own non-nuclear defense while the U.S. shifts resources to the Western Hemisphere and the Pacific. [1] The authors are not arguing against retrenchment — they are arguing for sequencing it. Their recommendation is for the U.S. to follow through with larger force cuts on a long-term timeline worked out with allies. [1] "NATO 3.0 is a vision for a reduced U.S. role and reallocation of resources. But there is no concrete, long-term plan," the report said. [1]
The authors also examined a scenario in which Washington moves to normalize relations with Russia while the war in Ukraine continues, without addressing European security concerns. In that case, allies might limit intelligence sharing and joint military planning, fearing leaks to Moscow. [1] Some have already moved in that direction. The report cites U.K. concerns about U.S. military operations in the Caribbean, and Dutch concerns about U.S. policy toward Russia, which led both countries to reduce some intelligence sharing — albeit modestly. [1] Still, the authors found that none of the four allies would side with Russia or China under any scenario examined. "Some strategists' fears about allies aligning with Russia as the United States draws down are overblown," they wrote. [1]
Defense ministers from France, Germany, Italy, Poland and the U.K. said in a joint statement that Europe "must assume greater responsibility for its own security," while also calling the U.S. "an indispensable Ally." [1] British Defense Secretary Wes Streeting said that buying European or American equipment "should not be an either/or choice," noting that British industry produces about 15% of each F-35. [1] The language is diplomatic, but the arithmetic underneath it is not: allies are hedging, spending more, and opening procurement books to domestic and European suppliers in ways that would have been politically difficult five years ago.
The RAND report cannot compel a plan into existence. But it does something almost as useful: it maps the cost of not having one, in the currency that defense bureaucracies understand best.
Predictable long-term plans that give allies a say "could sustain a continued, if reimagined, transatlantic partnership," the authors concluded. [1] Treating troops and commitments as bargaining chips, they added, "could undercut regional cooperation and, in turn, NATO 3.0's goal of European strength." [1] The Pentagon's Europe review is due in December. The question is not whether the U.S. draws down — that debate is largely settled. The question is whether Washington can make a decision that looks, to Berlin, Warsaw, London, and Paris, like strategy rather than impulse.