As President Barack Obama vows that the United States will take “action” in response to the allegations that Russia interfered with the November election, the U.S. army has started to bring tanks back to a Cold War site in the Netherlands as a show of its “commitment to deterrence in Europe.”
The U.S. and Dutch military reopened the Eygelshoven site on Thursday. It will contain “strategically prepositioned critical war stock” including M1 Abrams Tanks and M109 Paladin Self-Propelled Howitzers.
“Three years ago, the last American tank left Europe; we all wanted Russia to be our partner,” said Lt. Gen. Ben Hodges, head of U.S. Army Europe. “My country is bringing tanks back,” and “[w]e are signaling our commitment and demonstrating the ability to prepare,” he said.
“That is what Eygelshoven represents. This is the manifestation of 28 nations committed to the security of each other,” he said.
Added Dutch Gen. Tom Middendorp, chief defense staff of the Royal Netherlands Army: “We want to make sure we are sending a clear signal to Russia that we will not accept any violation of NATO’s territorial integrity.”
U.S. Congress earlier this month passed the National Defense Authorization Act, or NDAA, which, as the Wall Street Journal noted, “approved a $3.4 billion spending plan to boost European defenses including reopening or creating five equipment-storage sites in the Netherlands, Poland, Belgium, and two locations in Germany.”
NBC News adds:
Earlier in the year the U.S. had already begun taking steps to confront what the Pentagon described as “an aggressive Russia,” and Reuters wrote in October that NATO was prepping for its “biggest military build-up on Russia’s borders since the Cold War.”
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