U.S. troops fan out amid uncertainty

ZAGAN, Poland — On a snowy field in southwest Poland, U.S. tanks and troops gathered on Monday to defend against a resurgent Russia that President Donald Trump wants to befriend.

The troops — part of the largest U.S. deployment to Europe since the Cold War — plan to spread across Eastern Europe, fanning into the Baltic nations, digging in to Poland and also deploying to Romania, Bulgaria and Hungary. Major new commitments were made in July at a NATO summit in Warsaw by then-President Barack Obama, and at the time they seemed like a bipartisan expression of support for U.S. allies at a moment of heightened fear about Russia.

Now they’re coming despite the White House, not because of it. Eastern European nations say they fully trust Washington’s commitments — but the jubilation of the summer has been replaced by concern over Trump’s overtures to Russian President Vladimir Putin. NATO leaders acknowledge that the alliance would be rocked if Trump abandons the troop deployments.

The uncertainty has led to an unusual gap between Trump’s rhetoric and that of nearly the entire military establishment underneath him.

“It was the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the unlawful annexation of Crimea” that forced the deployments, said Lt. Gen. Ben Hodges, the commander of U.S. Army ground forces in Europe, ahead of a frigid Monday ceremony on a military exercise range outside the Polish town of Zagan, where a Polish military band played “The Star-Spangled Banner” to welcome their American counterparts.

“The last American tank left Europe three years ago because we all hoped Russia was going to be our partner. And so we had to bring all this back,” Hodges said.

Just over a week into the Trump presidency, the new U.S. leader has shown mixed messages on NATO. He called the alliance “obsolete” in an interview days before the inauguration. But Defense Secretary James Mattis called NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg on his first full day on the job last week, praising “the fundamental and enduring value of NATO for the security of both Europe and North America,” according to NATO. Later in the week, British Prime Minister Theresa May stood by Trump’s side and said he had “confirmed that you’re 100 percent behind NATO.”