WASHINGTON \u2014 The Pentagon is “poised” to station heavy weapons for up to 5,000 American troops in several Eastern European and Baltic countries to deter Russian aggression, The New York Times reported Saturday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The proposal, if approved, would be the first time since the end of the Cold War that the US has had heavy military equipment \u2014 including battle tanks \u2014 in newer NATO members that were once under Moscow’s influence as part of the Soviet Union.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It underlines growing concerns in Eastern Europe and in Washington about Russian President Vladimir Putin’s intentions after the annexing of Crimea and the actions of pro-Russian rebels in Ukraine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The move, which still requires approval from the White House and Defense Secretary Ash Carter, would send a strong message to Putin that Washington is prepared to defend fellow NATO members that are in Moscow’s shadow.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“The proposed ‘prepositioned’ stocks \u2014 to be stored on allied bases and enough to equip a brigade of 3,000 to 5,000 soldiers \u2014 also would be similar to what the United States maintained in Kuwait for more than a decade after Iraq invaded in 1990 and was expelled by American and allied forces early the next year,” The New York Times said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Defense Department has made no related decision at this time, the Pentagon told the newspaper.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Pentagon is “poised” to station heavy weapons for up to 5,000 American troops in several Eastern European and Baltic countries to deter Russian aggression, The New York Times reported Saturday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":113567,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-noindex":"","_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-nofollow":"","_yoast_wpseo_canonical":"","_acf":"","_yoast_wpseo_primary_category":46,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_smg_distribution_targets":[]},"categories":[46,11,33],"tags":[],"coauthors":[2793],"class_list":["post-51622","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-europe","category-global","category-home"],"acf":{"subheadline":"","legacy_arc_id":"5N7NDBLOSBCMHHERSWEEQR5Z3I","arc_canonical_url":"\/global\/europe\/2015\/06\/14\/report-us-poised-to-roll-heavy-weapons-into-e-europe\/","remove_feature_photo":false,"is_sponsored":false,"subtype":"","redirect_url":"","disable_inline_ads":false,"native_logo_pretext":"Presented By:"},"yoast_head":"\n