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Passing the Baton in Europe

There has rarely been a safer window for the transition of security on the continent away from America. August 22, 2025, 2:00 PM Comment icon View Comments ( )

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Ten years from now, the United States should have no significant troop presence in Europe.

Realists are in broad agreement that the United States is overcommitted there. Indeed, the fact that the U.S. military remained in Europe after the end of the Cold War seems profoundly at odds with realism’s assumption that alliances are primarily a response to threat. But whether bureaucratic politics or simple path dependence are to blame, the fact is that, 30 years after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the United St

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