microblog · @TomHalstead · reporter · 26 January 2026, 17:20
The retrograde has started. ~38,000 personnel and families out of Germany, Italy, the UK, Spain. Largest movement out of Europe since 1990.
And it is already stuck, for a reason nobody planned: the asset freeze broke the payment chain. German suppliers cannot lawfully take US government money. Some aircraft are held because nobody can sell the Air Force jet fuel.
Two C-17s that should have left at 0900 are still sitting there. Cleared three times by our side. Zero times by the Germans. Reason on the hold sheet: "security inspection." Nobody is shouting. That is what is frightening about it. It is completely quiet out t…
Europe froze the assets of a departing army and thereby prevented it from departing. Nobody drafted that. It is the single most consequential unintended effect of the entire crisis and it came out of a payments annex.
The largest American movement out of Europe since 1990 stops on the ramp at Ramstein. Not for politics: the asset freeze broke the payment chain, and no supplier can lawfully sell the Air Force any more Jet A. Berlin asks about the B61s.
The Secretary General writes directly to the President. Not custody, not security, not a change in who holds the weapons. One page conceding that the oldest guarantee in the alliance will not end by departure rather than by decision.
I need people to understand what Berlin is actually asking about tonight, because it is not the trucks. There are American B61s at Büchel. If nuclear-certified custodial units go home inside a general withdrawal, nuclear sharing does not get cancelled. It just…
Employment notices started arriving today for base contract staff. My neighbour has worked at that gate for twenty-six years. Everyone keeps calling this a geopolitical crisis. In this town it is a redundancy letter.
My husband has been on that base for six days without leaving it. I am not going to say which base or what he does. I will say that he called tonight and asked me to look up what a "custodial detachment" is, because he did not want to say more than that, and I…
Rutte wrote to the President tonight. Personally. One page, one ask: written assurance that the weapons will not leave without consultation. Not custody. Not security. Consultation. He said if it does not come he convenes the NPG and expects Article 4 within t…