US Sending 600 Ground Troops to Eastern Europe

Aims to 'Reassure' Allies With New Deployments

The Pentagon has announced initial deployments of 600 US ground troops to Eastern Europe, a presence which officials say will be sustained “until further notice.”

The troops will be split evenly, roughly 150 per country, among Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia, and is aimed at reassuring them over what the Pentagon dubbed “Russian aggression.”

The move was well short of the massive deployments the various nations were seeking, and Estonia was quick to say they expect many more NATO troops in tyhe days and weeks to come.

Poland, the largest of the effected nations, has demanded a minimum of 10,000 NATO troops in the country, and was expecting in the neighborhood of 5,000 of those troops to be American.

Author: Jason Ditz

Jason Ditz is Senior Editor for Antiwar.com. He has 20 years of experience in foreign policy research and his work has appeared in The American Conservative, Responsible Statecraft, Forbes, Toronto Star, Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Providence Journal, Washington Times, and the Detroit Free Press.