Gen. Breedlove insists NATO’s leadership needs to consider the possibility on the grounds of tension between Russia and Ukraine, and that it was time for leaders to answer “tough questions” about how much of a footprint they need in Eastern Europe.

Breedlove has been making the rounds in both the US and Europe, talking up the “threat” Russia poses along their eastern frontier, and drumming up support for sending troops to the area to placate Poland and the Baltic States.

But while those nominal numbers of troops were sent on the pretext of calming those nations down about the non-existent threat of Russian invasion, Gen. Breedlove’s own interest in building up his theater of operations as European Command leader seems to be taking over, with calls to make those deployments as big as possible and as long-term as possible.