Reserve troops who may be called up for Europe duty would serve 'administrative' functions, Kirby says

Christine Mui
·2 min read
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President Joe Biden’s authorization Thursday for the military to call up as many as 3,000 reserve troops to support operations in Europe would be for “administrative” support contributing to the existing rotational presence, National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby said.

“These are people that are specialists in things like administrative functions, logistics, supply, maybe medical, dental, those kinds of things,” Kirby said in an interview with Fox News on Friday morning. “The kind of enabling functions that you need to support and sustain a large troop presence for a long time.”

It is not yet clear if the military plans to actually deploy any of the 3,000 reserve troops. Biden’s executive order telling the reservists to be ready for possible deployment came after he attended a NATO summit in Lithuania this week, where he pledged that the U.S. and its allies “will not waver” in defense of Ukraine.

The clarification from Kirby may have been an attempt to tamp down anxiety after Republicans railed against the executive order Thursday.

Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) said in a tweet Thursday that with his order, Biden is “arguably walking the U.S. up to the line of war and daring Russia to shoot first.”

“UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES should U.S. servicemen & women be sent to fight in Ukraine,” Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) added Friday morning. In fact, no reserve troops would be sent to Ukraine even if they were deployed to Europe.

The U.S. grew its presence in Europe by about 20,000 troops, including new rotations of 10,000 troops in Poland, after Russian President Vladimir Putin sought to seize the country, amounting to a total of over 100,000 troops.

“This reaffirms the unwavering support and commitment to the defense of NATO’s eastern flank in the wake of Russia’s illegal and unprovoked war on Ukraine,” Lt. Gen. Douglas Sims, the director of operations for the Joint Staff, told reporters of the move Thursday.

In his executive order, Biden cited Operation Atlantic Resolve, the U.S. effort to support Ukraine against Russian military aggression and shore up NATO defenses which began in 2014 when Russia annexed the Crimean Peninsula from Ukraine.