U.S Secretary of Defense, Lloyd Austin has ordered additional troops and military assets to be deployed to different parts of Europe.
A senior US defence official made this known to reporters, adding that the move was to further support the US’s NATO allies, CNN reports.
America will send a total of 500 troops in this new deployment, the official said.
This will also see the country sending KC-135 refueling aircraft to Greece, and an air support operation center deployed to Poland and Romania.
Also an ordinance and maintenance companies will be sent to Germany.
The official said that the ordinance and maintenance companies will provide additional logistic support to the first armored brigade combat team and third infantry division already deployed in Germany.
“It’s only 500, small units, enablers, we said at the get-go of deploying forces that we would not rule out additional forces to include enablers, and these units are very much in support of forces that were already sent forward,” the official said.
The 500 addition will bring to 100,000, the US military personnel either on rotational or permanent orders stationed in Europe at the moment.
The official explained that the decision to send these troops and military assets were “based on conversations that the secretary had with the chairman and with Gen. (Tod) Wolters,” the commander of US European command, “that these additional enablers would be useful for the forces that are already” in Europe.
The additional deployment “were already kind of queued up to go, and again fully in support of our efforts to help defend NATO airspace if needed,” the official added
