We hear that the U.S. is mobilizing about 3,000 reservists for deployment to Europe. I wondered how troop levels now compare to the past. Here are a few facts and figures:

• In the late 1950s, the U.S. had about 450,000 troops in Europe. (from The Week)
• For “most of the Cold War”, the U.S. had around 330,000 and NATO as a whole around 900,000. The Warsaw Pact had around 1.2 million. (same source as above)
• After 1991, U.S. troops were reduced to around 66,000. (same source as above)
• In 2018, it was around 65,000. This is a bit surprising to me – so even though “Operation Atlantic Resolve” started when Russia invaded Crimea in 2014, troop levels were still maintained around where they were during the supposedly peaceful 1990s.
• Currently in 2023, the U.S. has around 100,000 troops in Europe. (Politico)
• I tried to figure out how many troops Russia has in Ukraine, but I found this number elusive. CNN says around 500 battalions, and just from random web searching a battalion varies but could be something like 500 soldiers. So multiply these very rough numbers you get 250,000 troops.

So the headline about 3,000 reservists seems like a pretty small number in the grand scheme. What are the troops in Europe actually doing. Going back to the The Week article (from 2022):

The US will establish a permanent headquarters of the US 5th Army Corps in Poland, acting as a forward command post and army garrison headquarters. There will be an additional brigade stationed in Romania to enhance Nato forces across the eastern flank, alongside other manoeuvrable US army units. The US will also increase deployments of special operations forces, armoured vehicles, aviation and air defence to strengthen the security of the region.

The emphasis is on combined operations with other Nato allies, using forces that have enhanced flexibility and combat readiness. The US will also deploy two additional F-35 fighter bomber squadrons to the UK and two additional destroyers at Rota naval base in Spain.

The Week