The U.S. will establish a permanent headquarters for its 5th Army Corps in Poland, send 5,000 additional troops to Romania and increase rotational deployments in the Baltic states, President Joe Biden said, at a NATO summit where leaders agreed an overhaul of the alliance’s strategy for defending eastern Europe from Moscow.
Two squadrons of US F-35 fighter aircraft will be sent to the UK, Biden added, in addition to stationing air defense systems in Italy and Germany and increasing the number of US naval destroyers to Spain to six from four.
The deployments will be in addition to the more than 100,000 US troops currently stationed in Europe, which had already increased by about 20,000 since Russian president Vladimir Putin launched his invasion of Ukraine four months ago.