Striking reversal: How Europeans should react to Trump’s missile cancellation

Problem

The Pentagon has announced the withdrawal of 5,000 American troops from Germany within the next six to 12 months, punishing Germany for Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s criticism of how the Trump administration is handling Iran.

More significant than the troop drawdown, however, is America’s refusal to deploy its 2nd Multi-Domain Task Force (MDTF) long-range fires battalion. This reverses a July 2024 agreement between the United States and Germany to begin “episodic deployments” in 2026 of US army conventional long-range capabilities, including ground-launched Tomahawk cruise missiles with a range of more than 1,600km. German defence officials had framed the arrangement as a stopgap measure until European-developed deep-strike systems would come online.

The 2nd MDTF will likely remain assigned to the European theatre and its long-range fires battalion could eventually turn up in another European country. But denying Germany a critical capability—just days after the Pentagon’s policy chief Elbridge Colby praised the country for “taking the leading role”—demonstrates once again that the US under President Donald Trump is not a reliable security partner for Europe.

Solution

Europeans must redouble their efforts to acquire sovereign long-range weapons. Strike drones, which Europeans are beginning to introduce into their armed forces, augment the tactical fight—but they lack the speed, range and punch to reliably deliver damage against large or hardened targets at distances beyond around 500km.

For longer ranges, Europeans should start crash programmes to pair available air- or sea-launched cruise missiles, such as Storm Shadow/SCALP-EG, Taurus or the French Naval Cruise Missiles (MdCN), with range-extension boosters for ground launch. They should then gear the supply chains established to expand missile and booster production to be redirected to the more sophisticated, 2,000km-plus designs being developed through the European Long-Range Strike Approach (ELSA) for initial capability in the mid-2030s, such as a British-German cruise missile and a French ballistic missile.

Ballistic missiles could also be sourced from Turkey or South Korea. Both have established production lines for 500km-plus range systems and might be valuable partners for joint development or joint production of longer-range systems or suppliers of tried-and-tested subcomponents, such as rocket motors or guidance systems.

Ukraine, for its part, has a nascent but expanding missile production base, with programmes such as Flamingo delivering initial results at lesser-than-advertised capability. Nevertheless, Ukraine’s combat-proven long-range weapons (or evolutions thereof) might well form part of a future “high-low mix” of European strike capabilities.

Context

The MDTF is a lean formation designed to support other forces with precision multi-domain fires and effects. For all intents and purposes, the formation and its long-range fires battalion match the “critical but more limited support” European allies could continue to count on despite US efforts to rebalance other military commitments, according to the Pentagon’s recent National Defense Strategy.

Europeans have known for some time that, without US capabilities, they would be outnumbered and out-ranged by Russia’s long-range strike assets, calling into question their ability to deter Russian aggression. While Russia further expands its missile production, European programmes stagnate and purchases from the US face mounting delays.

The prospect that Germany will be able to procure Tomahawk missiles in short order is diminishing after the US launched 1,000 or more such missiles at Iran. It is clear that America will prioritise its own stockpiles before supplying other countries.