The German military, the Bundeswehr, has more troops deployed abroad as peacekeepers and in the fight against terrorism than any country apart from the United States, but it is currently undergoing massive cost-cutting reforms.

"We will reduce the duration of international missions from six months to four months in the second half of the year," Struck told the weekly Welt am Sonntag newspaper.

Germany has some 7,700 soldiers deployed on foreign operations: around 2,000 with the International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan; 4,900 troops in Kosovo and Bosnia; 250 in the Horn of Africa and others on smaller missions.

"At the end of the year, we want to stop the German federal armed forces guarding American military bases," Struck also told the newspaper.

The US defence department is currently studying a "base re-alignment and closure" (BRAC) programme aimed at redeploying troop bases around the world so Washington can react quickly to new military threats.

A number of bases are likely to close in Germany and tens of thousands of troops move out of the country, probably to central and eastern Europe.