Host of the American retrograde and of the B61 vault standoff at Büchel. Broke the US payment chain with the asset freeze.
Host nations revoke diplomatic clearance for American tanker sorties at Ramstein and Mildenhall, and close western European airspace to any aircraft staging toward the Arctic.
They have closed their runways to us. Their runways — which we paid for, which we built, which we have defended since before their parliaments existed in their current form. So we'll fly out of Maine. It's further. It costs more. Every tanker crew in this coun…
I have ordered the Department of Defense to begin bringing our people home from Europe. Thirty-eight thousand Americans and their families have been stationed on a continent that froze our accounts four days ago. They are not hostages and they are not going to…
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.
Feldjäger patrol vehicles park across the access road at Büchel and turn on their blue lights. Within forty minutes the same thing happens at Volkel and Kleine Brogel. Nobody approaches the inner wire.
I have about $40k in savings. It took eleven years to get there. I am not rich and I cannot afford to be clever. Yesterday the EU froze US government assets. Today my banking app looks exactly the same as it did on Friday. I do not know whe…
Every US tanker track out of Mildenhall and Ramstein has gone dark this morning. Not rerouted. Gone. Host nations have pulled the diplomatic clearances. No tankers means no Atlantic air operations from Europe. That is the whole game.
In coordination with allies, the United Kingdom has suspended diplomatic clearance for US offensive staging and aerial refuelling operations from UK territory. Support for NATO eastern flank rotations continues unaffected.
Note the second sentence. Nobody is thinning the eastern flank to punish Washington. Not one government has been willing to make Moscow the beneficiary of this. That restraint is the most impressive thing anyone has done this month.
They have closed their runways to us. Their runways — which we paid for, which we built, which we have defended since before their parliaments existed in their current form. So we'll fly out of Maine. It's further. It costs more. Every tanker crew in this coun…
People keep saying "the Germans closed the runways" like it is a headline. The man who closed the runway coaches my son's football team on Wednesdays. He came round on Sunday with a cake. He looked absolutely wretched about it. None of this is happening betwee…
The Americans have come into my bakery every Saturday for eleven years. The big one always orders wrong and laughs about it. Today two of them came in and nobody said anything except the order. Eleven years and we could not find a sentence. I gave them the bre…
"We'll fly out of Maine." Sir, I have loaded those aircraft. Flying out of Maine means a tanker crew doing fourteen hour cycles in Arctic weather to put gas in one fighter, every day, forever. They will do it. They will not complain. Somebody should say out lo…
Everyone in Brussels is very brave this week about the Americans leaving. I live four hundred kilometres from Kaliningrad. My yard has cranes and my grandfather had a very different flag over this shipyard. You may all be right about the principle. Please unde…
Marek, from Tartu: yes. Every word. The people posting "good riddance" tonight all live at least a thousand kilometres further west than we do. It is very easy to be principled about a shield when you are standing behind two other people.
I am 47, I work in a dental office, I have never followed foreign news in my life. My son is 19 and enlisted in August. Since Monday everyone keeps saying words like NATO and Article 5 and asset freeze and I nod and then I go and cry in the…
I have ordered the Department of Defense to begin bringing our people home from Europe. — Written statement, the White House
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…
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 …
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.
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…
URGENT: German military police have sealed the perimeter access roads at Büchel Air Base. Dutch and Belgian forces reported doing the same at Volkel and Kleine Brogel. All three sites store US nuclear weapons.
Precision matters tonight, so: The Americans have not been disarmed. Nobody has approached the inner wire. The vaults are American, the codes are American, and no host nation can open, arm or move anything. The airfield is German. The tower is German. The powe…
There are four hundred American service members inside those fences tonight on generator power. Every single conversation about this is about the weapons. I understand why. I would just like one person in the coverage to remember that there are people standing…
Chancellor Merz to the Bundestag: "The weapons belong to the United States; the ground they sit upon belongs to the Federal Republic of Germany. No nuclear weapon will be moved, flown or loaded across German territory without the explicit written authorisation…
They have put police vans across the road at Büchel. My grandfather is 91. He heard it on the radio and he said: "das ist wo die Bomben sind." That is where the bombs are. He has known that his whole adult life. He has never once said it out loud in this house…
Correcting several bad takes at once. Nobody has seized a nuclear weapon. The host nations have not gone near the vaults. They parked vehicles across an access road, put up barrier gates, and turned on blue lights. Nobody can seize a nuclea…
The Nuclear Planning Group met this afternoon in restricted session. Article 4 was invoked by four Allies. The decision of the host nations is on the record of the Alliance. I asked Washington, three days ago, for one page of paper. I am still asking.
Great numbers out of the shipyards today. Best hiring month in eleven years. Nobody reports it. Everything in Germany is completely normal and completely under control.
My cousin is one of the Feldjäger on that road tonight. He rang his mother at nine and said: "Wir stehen nur da. Sie stehen auch nur da." We are just standing there. They are just standing there too. That is the whole thing. Two sets of young men standing in t…
"Everything in Germany is completely normal and completely under control." Three hours ago, allied military police sealed the three airfields on this continent that hold American nuclear weapons. The custodial detachments are on emergency power. Nothing can la…
J'ai enseigné l'histoire du vingtième siècle pendant quarante ans. I taught the twentieth century for forty years. I taught that the danger was always that the weapons would be used. Not once, in forty years, did I teach a class in which the danger was that no…
Good numbers on the shipyards. Finally somebody talking about jobs instead of doom.
Deb, respectfully, three hours before that post, foreign soldiers sealed three airfields holding American nuclear weapons and the American airmen inside are on emergency power. I am not trying to score a point off you. I genuinely need to know whether you know…
I did not know that. It was not on my feed. I have looked it up now. I am not going to pretend I have changed my mind about everything because of one reply from a stranger. But I did not know that, and I should have, and I am cross about it in a way I am still…