About | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline
LOG IN
LOG IN

1 1 (January 14, 2020)

handle is hein.crs/govbgyx0001 and id is 1 raw text is: FF.ri E.$~ & January 14, 2020 Defender Europe 20 Military Exercise, Historical (REFORGER) Exercises, and U.S. Force Posture in Europe On October 7, 2019, the U.S. Army announced it would conduct the largest U.S.-based exercise of forces deploying to Europe in the past 25 years: Defender Europe 20. While some have compared it to annual Cold War-era REFORGER military exercises, the Army suggests that while similar, Defender Europe 20 will be a more complex exercise than historical REFORGER exercises in terms of logistics, multinational command and control, and multidomain operations. From a military standpoint, in the event of a major conflict on the European continent, present force levels, including units in Europe as part of the heel-to-toe rotations, could prove to be insufficient to defend U.S. and allied interests. In that scenario, the United States may choose to flow significant additional forces across the Atlantic, an undertaking that would be complex under optimal circumstances, and exponentially more so under conditions of war, when an adversary might seek to actively prevent the arrival of U.S. forces and equipment (anti-access/area denial). Some officials are concerned that the United States' ability to move equipment in timely fashion, in particular heavy tanks and fighting vehicles, from U.S. bases to the ports from which the equipment is shipped requires additional emphasis. Defender Europe 20 is intended to exercise and test such expeditionary deployment capabilities, much as REFORGER did in past eras. REFORGER REturn of FORces to GERmany was a series of North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) annual military exercises conducted from the late 1960s to early 1990s to validate the ability of NATO allies to rapidly deploy forces to Europe to reinforce NATO positions on the continent and to demonstrate Western commitment to defend against Warsaw Pact aggression. While approximately 74,000 U.S. military personnel are stationed in Europe today, at the height of the Cold War, more than 400,000 U.S. military personnel were stationed on the European continent. According to the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS): In the late 1980s, the United States maintained approximately 340,000 permanently stationed military personnel in Europe to deter the conventional threat that the Soviet Union and Warsaw Pact forces posed to West Germany and Western Europe. Of that, U.S. Army forces represented approximately 193,000 soldiers organized under two corps (each composed of an armored division, an infantry division, and an armored cavalry brigade) in addition to three independent combat brigades and numerous enabler and support units. Apart from permanent-stationed forces, the United States maintained large stockpiles of prepositioned equipment in Western Europe-enough for several divisions and support units to allow forces based elsewhere to rapidly reinforce the continent in the event of conflict. Tr -& c~fRFOGM According to the Government Accountability Office (GAO): REFORGER'S history can be traced to the 1967 Tripartite Agreement between the United States, the United Kingdom, and the Federal Republic of Germany. The agreement allowed the United States to bring back to the United States the headquarters and two brigades of the 24th Mechanized Infantry Division, leaving only one brigade of that division in Europe. To compensate for this reduction in troop strength, the agreement required that U.S. forces returning to the United States be held in a high state of readiness to ensure their capability to return rapidly to Europe in a crisis. The agreement also stipulated that the 24th Mechanized Infantry Division return the two U.S.-based brigades annually to Germany, draw prepositioned equipment, link up with the forward-deployed brigade, and then participate in a field training exercise (FTX). REFORGER was conducted in three phases: (I) Deployment. Tested procedures for receiving, equipping, and transporting REFORGER units to assembly areas for tactical employment and also evaluated the condition of prepositioned equipment. (2) REFORGER Follow-On Exercise. Provided combined arms training to REFORGER forces and oriented units deployed from the United States with the European environment, as well as their missions in the defense of Europe. (3) Redeployment. Cleaned equipment, returned it to storage, and redeploy forces back to the United States. While REFORGER initially enjoyed public support, as the exercise grew over the years in terms of numbers of troops gognpo goo g , q 'S a X 11LULANJILiN,

What Is HeinOnline?

HeinOnline is a subscription-based resource containing thousands of academic and legal journals from inception; complete coverage of government documents such as U.S. Statutes at Large, U.S. Code, Federal Register, Code of Federal Regulations, U.S. Reports, and much more. Documents are image-based, fully searchable PDFs with the authority of print combined with the accessibility of a user-friendly and powerful database. For more information, request a quote or trial for your organization below.



Short-term subscription options include 24 hours, 48 hours, or 1 week to HeinOnline.

Purchase Access

Contact us for annual subscription options:

Contact Us

Already a HeinOnline Subscriber?

Log In

profiles profiles most