Pentagon Chief Says Bolstering Eastern Europe 'Important'
U.S. Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter on a visit to Berlin Monday touted Washington's bid to station heavy military equipment in eastern Europe as an "important" move to help counter any Russian threat.
Amid mounting fears about Russia's actions and intentions in the former Soviet bloc, Washington has announced it is poised to move heavy equipment to the region to support training efforts, prompting Moscow to hit back with a threat to boost its own nuclear arsenal.
Asked about the plans after a speech to a think-tank, Carter said: "That is something that we are considering, that we will be speaking with our colleagues" about during a week-long trip that will also take him to Estonia and a NATO defense ministers' meeting in Brussels.
"The concept is to have sets of equipment principally to support training so that they are already located there, including heavy equipment," said Carter, who took office in February.
"There is the possibility also of more equipment being positioned for contingencies."
Without providing further details, Carter said Washington aimed to reassure NATO partners on its eastern fringe.
"If we're going to increase the resilience of the alliance and particularly of allies at the edges of alliance territory... this is an important thing to do," he said.
Ahead of Carter's trip, a Pentagon official played down Kremlin accusations that NATO was threatening Russia's borders.
"The material is currently allocated to Germany. The question we asked ourselves last year, over the period of increased exercises in eastern Europe, is where is the optimum place to store the material to be efficient," the U.S. official said.
The New York Times this month reported that the Pentagon was poised to store battle tanks, infantry fighting vehicles and other heavy weapons for as many as 5,000 American troops in several Baltic and eastern European countries.
The paper described it as a "significant move to deter possible Russian aggression in Europe" and said the plan, if approved, would represent the first time since the Cold War that the U.S. has stationed such equipment in NATO members that were once under Soviet sway.
Later Monday, Carter will travel to Muenster, northwestern Germany, with his German, Dutch and Norwegian counterparts and visit the 1st German-Netherlands Corps, NATO's interim rapid deployment joint task force.
Source: Agence France Presse
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