BERLIN — Germany thought the United States would soon deploy long-range missiles on its soil that could strike deep into Russia and help deter an attack.
That plan is now effectively dead.
After Donald Trump’s move to cut thousands of U.S. troops from Germany, one of the units likely to go is a specialized force that was supposed to bring Tomahawk cruise missiles to Europe. Without it, Berlin and its allies are left with a gap in their defenses — and no quick way to fill it.
“The U.S. administration’s decision not to station cruise missiles in Germany after all is dangerous,” said Metin Hakverdi, a senior member of the German parliament with the Social Democratic Party — part of the ruling coalition headed by Chancellor Friedrich Merz. “It creates a gap in NATO’s deterrence against Russia.”
Tomahawks would give NATO forces the ability to strike further and harder than anything Germany or other European countries can currently field. One senior NATO diplomat told POLITICO that on “long-range fires, it’s a fact that Europe still lacks the capabilities.”
The deployment — promised by former President Joe Biden in 2024 — aimed to strengthen NATO’s non-nuclear deterrence against Russia in response to Moscow stationing its Iskander short-range ballistic missiles in its Baltic exclave of Kaliningrad in 2018.
But now Trump wants to pull 5,000 U.S. troops out of Germany — including the missile unit commanded by the U.S. Army’s Multi-Domain Task Force — in response to Merz questioning the U.S. war against Iran.
That upends Berlin’s strategic thinking.
“As I see it at the moment, there is objectively hardly any possibility from the U.S. side to provide such weapons systems,” Merz said over the weekend.
Nico Lange, founder and director of the Institute for Risk Analysis and International Security, said the planned deployment was meant to address a long-standing imbalance in Europe’s deterrence posture.
The Iskanders based in Kaliningrad can reach “large parts of NATO territory, including Germany,” he said. The response was supposed to be a U.S. force equipped with Typhon missile launchers firing both Tomahawks and modified Navy SM-6 missiles.
Europe has no immediate replacement for the Tomahawks.
“This was about closing a deterrence gap,” Lange said. Without such capabilities, he warned, Germany remains vulnerable to pressure from Moscow. “Deterrence gaps always mean potential coercion.”
Germany’s three options
One immediate option is for Germany to upgrade the Taurus, which currently has a range of about 500 km. Berlin paused production of the missile, but is planning to restart making the Taurus Neo version.
“We are modernizing our Taurus stockpiles and developing the successor, Taurus Neo,” defense ministry spokesperson Mitko Müller told reporters on Monday.
However, the gap between the Taurus — and similar European systems like the Franco-British SCALP/Storm Shadow — and the Tomahawk is significant, said Fabian Hoffmann, a doctoral research fellow at the Oslo Nuclear Project.
“The only thing that really stands out with the Tomahawk is range: around 1,600 kilometers,” he said.
The Taurus Neo upgrade Müller mentioned would extend that range — but not soon.
“The Neo will probably increase the reach to around 1,000 kilometers, but only be available past 2030,” Hoffmann said.
If the U.S. isn’t willing to send its own systems to Germany, Berlin could try to buy them for itself. German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius formally asked his U.S. counterpart Pete Hegseth last summer about acquiring long-range missile systems.
But there is no clarity on whether that will happen. “The process is ongoing,” Müller said Monday, responding to POLITICO’s question on the status of Pistorius’ request.
Lange said Berlin may be pursuing an option that is no longer on offer.
Pointing to the strain on U.S. stockpiles thanks to the war against Iran, he added: “After so many systems have been used up, I would immediately advise against it.”
A longer-term option is the European Long Range Strike Approach, a pan-European effort to develop a missile with a range of over 2,000 km intended to provide a conventional deterrent independent of the United States.
But the timeline is long. The goal is to deliver such a capability “within a decade,” according to official German planning documents, putting any operational system well into the 2030s.
Even German officials acknowledge the uncertainty. “I really cannot give any timelines,” Müller said Monday.
While Europe is trying to build its own long-range strike capability, the systems needed to deter Russia in the near term remain out of reach.
“Any reduction of capabilities in this geopolitical situation in Europe is a concern,” another senior NATO diplomat said.
The scramble to figure out how to respond to Trump is a sign of Europe’s lack of preparedness, Hoffman said.
“The real threat to European security is not a hostile America, it is Europe’s own obliviousness and incompetence,” he said in a social media post.
