U.S. soldiers operate an M1A2 Abrams tank during a live fire exercise at Drawsko Pomorskie, Poland, on Feb. 16, 2023. The Army’s decadelong practice of rotating armored brigades through Europe is eroding combat readiness, straining budgets and narrowing its ability to respond to crises elsewhere, according to a new study. (Matthew Foster/U.S. Army)
STUTTGART, Germany — The Army’s decadelong practice of rotating armored brigades through Europe is eroding combat readiness, straining budgets and narrowing its ability to respond to crises elsewhere, according to a new study that calls for a reset.
The deployment of tank units to Europe on nine-month missions emerged in the aftermath of Russia’s 2014 invasion of Ukraine, which came a year after the U.S. Army pulled the last of its battle tanks out of Europe.
The initiative at the time was seen as a novel way to meet a growing threat posed by Russia on NATO’s eastern flank without permanently basing more forces in Europe, given the Pentagon’s attempt to prioritize a pivot toward the Pacific.
But some analysts now argue that the rotational concept, still pivotal to U.S. European Command’s strategy on the Continent, has outlived its usefulness.
“This is the great irony of rotational (armored brigade rotations) in EUCOM: A policy that was initially developed to provide a flexible force posture became entrenched and has since limited the U.S. Army’s ability to provide armored units to the U.S. joint force,” according to the study, which was published in the latest edition of Army University Press’ Military Review.
U.S. soldiers fire a 60mm mortar during a live-fire training exercise at Grafenwoehr, Germany, on Mar. 17, 2026. Mortar gunnery is a core collective task that rotational units must sustain both at home station and while deployed, a training load that analysts argue contributes to the readiness drain associated with continuous rotations to Europe. (Addison Shinn/U.S. Army)
“This degraded U.S. armored structural readiness is problematic for U.S. national security and limits U.S. crisis response options,” it added.
The study builds on other work by Army War College professor John Deni, who in 2024 found that rotating an Army tank brigade to Europe costs nearly $70 million more per year than basing that unit permanently in either Germany or Poland.
The latest report, authored by Lt. Col. Ryan Van Wie, found that in addition to the added costs of the rotational approach, the concept is doing damage to the Army’s own preparedness to wage war.
One major factor is the sheer amount of time soldiers must invest in tasks unrelated to combat to get Europe deployments in motion.
For example, it takes about one month to pack containers, prepare vehicles for shipment and meet agricultural sanitization requirements, the study stated. Then it takes two months for equipment to transit via rail from base to U.S. ports for onward movement to Europe.
Add in relevant predeployment training and redeployment pack-ups to home base, and units face a more than two-year cycle for one Europe mission.
Croatian soldiers from the "Seamounts" Land Forces fire a machine gun during familiarization in Bemowo Piskie, Poland, on Aug. 25, 2020. Multinational rotations such as Croatia's contribution to the Poland battlegroup have anchored NATO's deterrence posture for years, even as analysts question how much rotational presence raises the bar against Russian aggression. (Kulani Lakanaria/U.S. Army)
The “stunning fact remains that deploying ABCTs cannot train with their equipment for seven to eight months in a two-year period,” the study concluded. “Today’s ABCTs have much more experience packing containers and conducting railway loading operations than conducting live-fire collective maneuver at the company level or above.”
Once the units arrive in Europe, they encounter other problems, such as operating in austere areas in the Baltics and Poland that make it difficult for units to maintain their fleets of armored vehicles, the report said.
A Defense Department Inspector General report in March came to similar conclusions, noting that 117 Bradley Fighting Vehicles assigned to a rotational unit were not fully mission-ready.
Training ranges in Eastern Europe also “suffer from risk-averse policies that prevent U.S. rotational units from meeting the collective live-fire requirements needed to attain the highest readiness ratings,” such as restrictions on night live-fire drills, the report said.
U.S. training facilities in Germany aren’t hampered by the same shortcomings, the report noted.
U.S. soldiers practice maneuvers during M240 machine gun training in North Macedonia on Dec. 8, 2023. The U.S. Army has continuously rotated armored and cavalry formations through Eastern and Southern Europe for nearly a decade, a posture built to deter Russia and reassure NATO allies. (Devin Klecan/U.S. Army)
A better alternative would be to permanently base one armored brigade in either Germany or Poland while ending the current practice of having two armored brigades on continuous rotations to Europe, the report recommended.
Such a move would save money, improve the well-being of soldiers and their families, give stronger reassurance to vulnerable allies and benefit both NATO and the U.S. armored force, the report concluded.
The Army hasn’t publicly signaled any interest in moving away from the rotational concept, but there are larger unanswered questions about the future of the American military in Europe.
Top DOD officials have repeatedly emphasized that allies should prepare to take the lead when it comes to defending NATO territory.
Elbridge Colby, the Pentagon’s policy chief, has long called for a reduced U.S. presence in Europe, with rotational elements as a possible first target.
