Signal No. 149 · The posture review's first numbers

NBC News reported on Thursday, citing seven current and former US and Western officials, that the Pentagon is weighing a plan to pull aircraft, ships, weapons and troops from Europe: about 25,000 personnel or more, close to a third of the roughly 80,000 there, and in a larger option as many as 40,000. No decision has been made. Germany, Italy and Spain are named as the countries likely to be affected. General Alexus Grynkewich, who heads US European Command and is NATO's Supreme Allied Commander Europe, was expected to give Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth an initial analysis on Friday setting out several options across aviation, naval and ground forces, possibly moving some units to the eastern flank. Hegseth receives a final recommendation on 6 November, and it then goes to the president. NBC also reports that Marco Rubio, the secretary of state, intervened in June after the Pentagon prepared to brief NATO defence ministers on large reductions.

Donald Trump posted on Thursday afternoon: “Thanks to the bold leadership of my friend, Karol Nawrocki, President of Poland, major progress is being made toward establishing a U.S. Army base in Poland. If this happens, the location will be announced very soon.” Nawrocki answered that the Polish government “will do its utmost to provide the best possible location for the US Army base”. US defence officials have visited Poland in recent weeks to look at sites. The existing permanent US garrison is a small one at Poznań, and Warsaw has said it is prepared to spend around USD 4 billion on a base with family housing and schools.

Kęstutis Budrys, Lithuania's foreign minister, said after meeting Rubio in Washington on Thursday: “We received assurances that this gap, when we have a reduction in US troops, will not last long.” More than 1,000 US soldiers completed a rotation in Lithuania this summer, and Vilnius has had no clear decision on a successor; Budrys expects one in “days, perhaps the coming weeks”.

A Hudson Institute count in May put the permanently based force at roughly 68,000; the rest of the 80,000 rotates. A rotation can be ended without closing a base, and an armoured brigade's deployment to Poland was halted in May. NBC does not say whether the 5,000 personnel announced for Germany this spring are inside the 25,000. Of the ships and aircraft in the countries it names, Spain hosts the Navy's destroyers at Rota, and the US fighter wings in Italy and Germany are the F-16 units at Aviano and Spangdahlem.

Member states' ambassadors met on Friday morning and did not agree to renew the individual listings under the territorial-integrity regime, diplomats told reporters in Brussels; they return to it on Monday 21 September. The seven-day extension agreed on 14 September runs out at midnight on Tuesday. The regime covers almost 3,000 persons and entities, Vladimir Putin and Sergei Lavrov among them. France and Slovakia this week blocked a twelve-month renewal of the whole list while demanding that Alisher Usmanov come off it; Slovakia also wants Mikhail Fridman removed.

The Financial Times reports that the French demand is linked to a proposed arrangement with Azerbaijan for the release of French citizens held there. The Irish presidency and the External Action Service have proposed possible compromises that keep Usmanov on the list while lifting some of the restrictions on him, which include an asset freeze and an EU travel ban. Germany and Italy have indicated they might accept the French request; many others are sceptical of using EU sanctions for a national interest, and a third group is opposed outright. One diplomat said: “If member states start unpacking sanctions and taking off sharp edges, it creates a legal precedent which would be very useful for other oligarchs fighting EU sanctions in court.”

Kęstutis Budrys, Lithuania's foreign minister, said of Donald Tusk's warning that Russia plans drone and missile strikes on states supporting Ukraine: “I want to assure everyone that Lithuania has the same intelligence information as other countries in the region and countries that have deployed their troops here. There is no other information.” He had raised it with NATO's secretary general, the deputy secretary general and European chiefs of defence: “Lithuania has the same information; we discussed this as a potential false-flag operation by Russia.” Public warnings of this kind, he said, are coordinated among the capitals and meant to deter Moscow from staging provocations.

Emmanuel Macron said after meeting the leaders of the parliamentary parties on Friday that Russia has stepped up its attacks since the summer and that he has ordered France to raise its vigilance: “The interior minister will task the government with preparing a plan to protect our critical infrastructure and the most vulnerable sites within our defence industrial and technological base from drone attacks and cyber attacks.”

The Czech armed forces said on Friday evening: “The Gripen jets have taken off on the orders of the alliance headquarters as part of NATO's integrated air and missile defence system. If necessary, we are willing to defend the airspace of our allies.” The aircraft covered NATO airspace near Poland's eastern border after drones were detected over western Ukraine, did not intervene, and returned to base once Polish fighters relieved them. Operations at Lublin and Rzeszów airports were suspended again on Friday morning, the third day running.

Latvia's cabinet decided on 15 September to buy the Morana, a 155 mm wheeled self-propelled howitzer from Excalibur Army, in place of the Archer from BAE Systems Bofors, the public broadcaster reported on Friday. In June 2025 Riga and Stockholm had signed what the government describes as a mutual commitment to conclude an intergovernmental agreement later, for 18 Archers, and Sweden had offered to lend guns until new ones arrived. The government's account is that the Czech company offered an operationally equivalent system on better price and delivery terms, and that the Swedish route “is currently not possible” given “necessary financial resources and relatively long delivery times”. The defence ministry listed four criteria: cost, delivery terms, operational capabilities and the involvement of local industry. It says that involvement “is envisaged as part of the contract”. Excalibur Army is a subsidiary of Czechoslovak Group, one of Europe's largest ammunition producers, and first presented Morana in 2022. Sweden has contributed an armoured battalion, in rotations, to the NATO multinational brigade in Latvia since January 2025.

On figures compiled by analysts at Ukraine's Prosecutor General's Office and reported by Reuters, RM-48Us made up more than half of the 228 ballistic and hypersonic missiles fired at Ukraine in July and early August: 87 of 158 in July, the highest monthly total of the war, and 36 of 70 in the first eight days of August. Iskander launches fell to 38 in July from more than 100 in June. The round was built as a target for air-defence crews, misses by about 300 metres on average, and Ukrainian military intelligence says Russia plans more than 480 this year against 200-plus in 2025. Sidharth Kaushal of the Royal United Services Institute: “Their use allows the Russians to husband the more capable missiles they have, the Iskanders, but also the KN-23s and the Zircons, for winter.” He said the mass use could be intended to run down Ukraine's interceptor stocks.

A State Department notification in congressional records dated 15 September covers the transfer of ten MIM-104E GEM-T Patriot interceptors from Germany to Ukraine, valued at USD 29.6 million; re-exports above USD 14 million go to Congress, and the transfer proceeds unless a joint resolution blocks it. In Brussels on Friday Balázs Ujvári, a Commission spokesman, said of financing Patriot rounds from the EUR 90 billion loan: “The Patriots were approved just last week, so what we need to do is to receive the contracts. We don't have those, according to my understanding.” Friday's EUR 3.3 billion payment for drones and missiles brings 2026 disbursements from the loan's defence component to EUR 11.7 billion of an expected EUR 28.3 billion.