Less transparency at the Pentagon. Troop deployments won’t be made public

The US Department of Defence is not planning to publish its overseas force posture review for the first time in years, Politico has reported. Pentagon officials argue that the report is no longer necessary, given that the United States has recently released its strategic documents: the National Security Strategy and the National Defence Strategy;  which set out its objectives clearly, above all the shift in emphasis towards the Western Hemisphere.

Who is going to lose the benefits?

The absence of a document setting out the global deployment of US forces will come as something of a surprise to some members of Congress and experts. According to Politico, the Pentagon’s decision „disregards lawmakers and US allies”, who have used the Global Posture Review for early budget planning, among other things. The lack of a GPR is also expected to make life harder for the Senate Armed Services Committee. Some US think tanks had also been waiting for its publication. One example is the Hudson Institute, which said at the end of 2025 that it was expecting one of the administration’s most important policy reviews.   

A couple of gap years

The last Global Posture Review was published under Joe Biden, in November 2021. In hindsight, the timing was rather unfortunate. Just weeks later, Russia issued its much-publicised ultimatum, demanding limits on the US and NATO military presence and activity in the post-Soviet space, before launching its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February. That marked a turning point with a direct impact on US foreign policy, including the deployment of US armed forces in Europe. A common thread linking the conclusions of the previous GPR and the latest US National Security Strategy is the approach to the Indo-Pacific region. In both documents, it is identified as a priority area, with China described as the main threat.