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President Biden’s move to authorize calling up to 3,000 reservists to augment U.S. forces in Europe comes as the military struggles to recruit enough troops to the active-duty ranks.
The president’s executive order last week authorized the secretary of defense and secretary of homeland security to call members of the Selected Reserve and Individual Ready Reserve to active duty “for the effective conduct of Operation Atlantic Resolve in and around the United States European Command’s area of responsibility.”
The order follows Russia’s invasion of Ukraine entering a new phase of unpredictability.
Most notable was an apparent coup attempt by Russia’s private military company, the Wagner Group, which ended with thousands of its fighters reportedly taking new homes in Belarus, raising fears about the vulnerability of NATO’s eastern flank.
BIDEN TANGLES WITH REPORTER WHO QUESTIONS US COMMITMENT TO NATO: ‘NO ONE CAN GUARANTEE THE FUTURE’
President Biden and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on stage during the G-7 Declaration of Joint Support for Ukraine during the high-level NATO summit in Vilnius, Lithuania, July 12, 2023. Biden is calling to increase U.S. military forces in Europe. (Dominika Zarzycka/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
Russia’s war with Ukraine has prompted the U.S. to beef up its presence in Europe, with the Pentagon deploying an additional 20,000 troops to the continent since the conflict began last year.
The increased rotations to international theaters has strained the military, which was already battling its worse recruiting crisis in decades when the war in Ukraine began.
BIDEN, G-7 COUNTRIES VOW LONG-TERM SUPPORT FOR UKRAINE IN JOINT DECLARATION: ‘UKRAINE’S FUTURE LIES IN NATO’
While all branches of the military struggled to hit their fiscal 2022 recruiting goals, the Army was the only one to fall short of its objective. Earlier this year, the Army, Navy and Air Force all admitted they were likely to fall thousands of recruits short of meeting…
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