{"id":672477,"date":"2026-09-22T07:30:00","date_gmt":"2026-09-22T07:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/?p=672477"},"modified":"2026-09-22T07:30:00","modified_gmt":"2026-09-22T07:30:00","slug":"donald-rumsfelds-new-europe-is-waiting-for-its-second-act","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/?p=672477","title":{"rendered":"Donald Rumsfeld’s New Europe Is Waiting For Its Second Act"},"content":{"rendered":"

Donald Rumsfeld’s New Europe Is Waiting For Its Second Act<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

Authored by Jos\u00e9 Ni\u00f1o via The Libertarian Institute<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

On January 22, 2003, Donald Rumsfeld stepped behind the podium at the Foreign Press Center in Washington and, with one answer to a Dutch public television reporter, redrew the map of Europe. The reporter wanted to know why so many Europeans trusted Saddam Hussein more than then-President George W. Bush. The defense secretary fired back with words the Pentagon transcript<\/a> preserved in full:<\/p>\n

\n

“Now, you\u2019re thinking of Europe as Germany and France. I don\u2019t. I think that\u2019s old Europe. If you look at the entire NATO Europe today, the center of gravity is shifting to the east. And there are a lot of new members<\/strong>.”<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Rumsfeld kept going. \u201cGermany has been a problem, and France has been a problem.\u201d When the reporter cited public opinion, he refused to budge. \u201cBut you look at vast numbers of other countries in Europe. They\u2019re not with France and Germany on this, they\u2019re with the United States.\u201d<\/p>\n

Berlin and Paris erupted<\/a> in response. The transcript shows Rumsfeld never spoke the words \u201cnew Europe,\u201d yet headlines supplied them within hours<\/strong>, and Radio Free Europe<\/a> conceded that his underlying point about a split continent held up. A year later in Munich, he told reporters he felt<\/a> too old for regretting his comments at the time.<\/p>\n

The Iraq showdown gave the phrase its teeth. France and Germany, backed by Russia, wanted inspectors to keep working, and Paris threatened to veto a second war resolution at the United Nations<\/strong>. On January 30, 2003, the leaders of Britain, Spain, Italy, Portugal, Denmark, Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic answered with the \u201cLetter of Eight,\u201d a joint commentary<\/a> urging unity against Baghdad. Six days later, foreign ministers from the Vilnius Ten, a bloc stretching from Albania to the Baltics, endorsed<\/a> what they called Secretary of State Colin Powell\u2019s \u201ccompelling evidence\u201d and demanded \u201ca united response from the community of democracies.\u201d<\/p>\n

Washington repaid the loyalty<\/strong>. On May 8, 2003, the Senate voted<\/a> 96 to 0 to admit Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia, and Slovenia while their foreign ministers watched from the balcony. The Senate\u2019s own ratification resolution<\/a> cited their February 5 statement on Iraq. All seven entered NATO in 2004, bringing three former Soviet republics into the alliance for the first time<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Troops trailed the rhetoric. On August 16, 2004, the Bush White House announced a posture overhaul that would bring home<\/a> \u201cabout 60,000 to 70,000 uniformed personnel\u201d over a decade and ship heavy Cold War forces out of Germany<\/strong>. Romania signed a defense cooperation agreement<\/a> in 2005, and Bulgaria followed<\/a> in 2006, opening Mihail Kogalniceanu, Novo Selo, and Bezmer to rotating American units. At Bucharest in 2008, Bush pressed allies to declare that Ukraine and Georgia \u201cwill become members of NATO.\u201d Russia later went to war with Georgia that August<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Every president since has pushed the line east. Barack Obama canceled Bush\u2019s Polish interceptor plan in 2009 but substituted a phased shield<\/a> whose Romanian base at Deveselu went operational<\/a> in May 2016. After Crimea joined the Russian Federation, NATO stationed four multinational battlegroups in the Baltic states and Poland, with Americans leading the Polish unit. Donald Trump\u2019s first administration quit the INF Treaty in August 2019, and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo declared<\/a> that \u201cRussia is solely responsible for the treaty\u2019s demise.\u201d A 2020 pact with Warsaw produced a forward headquarters<\/a> for V Corps in Poznan.<\/p>\n

President Joe Biden hardened the frontier further<\/strong>. After February 2022, American forces in Europe swelled to roughly 100,000, congressional researchers<\/a> noted. The Army opened its first permanent garrison<\/a> in Poland in March 2023, and NATO declared the Aegis Ashore interceptor site at Redzikowo mission ready<\/a> in July 2024.<\/p>\n

Esteemed diplomat George Kennan saw where this road led. Reacting in 1998 to the first round of enlargement, the father of containment told Thomas Friedman, \u201cI think it is the beginning of a new cold war. I think the Russians will gradually react quite adversely and it will affect their policies. I think it is a tragic mistake. There was no reason for this whatsoever. No one was threatening anybody else,\u201d<\/strong> as The American Conservative<\/a><\/em> recounted.<\/p>\n

Donald Trump\u2019s second term scrambled the script. In October 2025, the Pentagon sent a 101st Airborne brigade home from Romania without a replacement, leaving about 1,000 Americans in the country. U.S. Army Europe and Africa insisted<\/a> the move was \u201cnot an American withdrawal from Europe or a signal of lessened commitment to NATO and Article 5\u201d but \u201ca positive sign of increased European capability and responsibility.\u201d Armed Services Chairmen Senator Roger Wicker (R-MS) and Rep. Mike Rogers (R-AL) fired back<\/a> that the decision \u201cappears uncoordinated and directly at odds with the President\u2019s strategy.\u201d<\/p>\n

Then Trump feuded with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz over the Iran war. On May 1, 2026, Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell announced<\/a>, \u201cThe Secretary of War has ordered the withdrawal of approximately 5,000 troops from Germany.\u201d Defense officials told CBS<\/a> the missile battalion slated for Germany would go elsewhere. Three weeks later, Trump rewarded Warsaw<\/a> instead. \u201cBased on the successful Election of the now President of Poland, Karol Nawrocki, who I was proud to Endorse, and our relationship with him, I am pleased to announce that the United States will be sending an additional 5,000 Troops to Poland,\u201d he wrote. Polish Foreign Minister Radek Sikorski suggested<\/a> the move would simply hold American numbers near previous levels.<\/p>\n

Punish old Europe, reward new Europe. Rumsfeld would recognize the playbook<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Ukraine will decide how far that playbook runs. In July 2026, Thomas Graham of the Council on Foreign Relations outlined<\/a> a plausible settlement built on a ceasefire along the front, Western security ties for Kiev without NATO membership, and an end to further eastward enlargement, terms Moscow could market as victory. Graham warned against assuming the tide favors Kiev. Bloomberg sources reported<\/a> that Vladimir Putin wants the rest of Donbas before serious talks, and envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner left Moscow<\/a> in September without a breakthrough.<\/p>\n

Suppose Russia keeps its conquests at a ruinous price. A pyrrhic win of that kind would shut NATO\u2019s door to new members, and Washington\u2019s national security class would likely respond as it did in 2003, by pouring money and manpower into the eastern allies it already has<\/strong>. The scaffolding survives every Trump trim. Allies have pledged<\/a> 5% of GDP on defense by 2035, and a CRS report<\/a> counted about 86,000 U.S. personnel in European NATO countries as of March 2026, with Congress requiring certification before numbers fall below 76,000.<\/p>\n

Once Trump exits, the hawks who blasted his Romania cut will still hold the blueprints and the bases<\/strong>. They may well revive Rumsfeld\u2019s New Europe as a permanent front against Moscow, anchored in Poland, Romania, and the Baltics. Kennan warned that such a posture breeds the hostility it claims to deter. Americans deserve a debate before Washington signs them up for another generation of geopolitical tension with the Russian Bear.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Tyler Durden<\/a><\/span>
\nTue, 09\/22\/2026 – 03:30<\/span><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Donald Rumsfeld’s New Europe Is Waiting For Its Second Act Authored by Jos\u00e9 Ni\u00f1o via The Libertarian Institute On January 22, 2003, Donald Rumsfeld stepped behind the podium at the Foreign Press Center in Washington and, with one answer to a Dutch public television reporter, redrew the map of Europe. The reporter wanted to know… Continue reading Donald Rumsfeld’s New Europe Is Waiting For Its Second Act<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":[],"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","footnotes":""},"categories":[17,22,13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-672477","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-border-security","category-immigration","category-immigration-reform","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/672477","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=672477"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/672477\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=672477"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=672477"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=672477"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}