The US and Spain will begin negotiations to renew a 1988 bilateral pact to expand the US naval presence at the Rota naval base in southern Spain, Spanish foreign minister Angeles Moreno revealed to parliament last week.
The statement comes months after White House National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan disclosed the plan in June to expand the number of Arleigh Burke-class destroyers stationed at the base from four to six.
“Those will help increase the United States’ and NATO’s maritime presence and all the relevant maritime domains in the Euro-Atlantic area,” Sullivan said at the time.
Plan Broached in 2020
The plan was first mentioned by then-head of the US European Command, Gen. Tod Wolters, in February 2020 to the Senate Armed Services Committee “to provide sensing and to enable command and control across a wider area.”
“Those two additional DDGs (Destroyer Designated Guided) would allow us the opportunity to continue to improve our ability to get indications and warnings in the potential battlespace and also dramatically improve our ability to better command and control,” Defense News quoted Wolters telling the panel.
US Naval Presence Expansion in 2025-26
According to Stars and Stripes, no official timeline has been set for the deployment of the additional US warships at Rota. However, US military commanders are aiming for 2025-2026.
In addition, the United States Army Europe and Africa is expected to activate a “short-range air defense battalion, engineer brigade headquarters, and short-range air defense battery” in Europe in the summer or fall of next year.
