Thursday 31 March 2016

Former Spy Chief On Britain's 'Libya Mistake'

A former Israeli spy chief tells Sky News the actions of the UK and France in 2011 are to blame for the country's current turmoil.


David Cameron has again been criticised for Britain's 2011 intervention in Libya, this time by a former Israeli intelligence chief.
Ephraim Halevy has warned that Libya will be the "biggest problem for Europe in the months to come".
The former head of the Mossad gave a forthright assessment of the situation in an exclusive interview with Sky News.
Libya invasion
He said: "I believe the trouble coming from Libya is going to be immense.
"I think the operation originally launched by Britain and France turned out to be the biggest mistake committed by western Europe in recent years.
"I think the result we are now seeing in Libya is a direct result of the policies that were initiated by Paris and London at the start of this campaign."
Mr Cameron was singled out by Barack Obama a few weeks ago in rare criticism from a serving US President.
The Prime Minister was "distracted by a range of other things" after the 2011 invasion, Obama said, and Libya had been left in "a mess".
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http://news.sky.com/story/1669825/former-spy-chief-on-britains-libya-mistake

Economist Argues 'Pie in the Sky' Sanders Will, in Fact, 'Make Economy Great Again'

Leading economist argues that Sanders' bold economic agenda would 'deliver standards of well-being for the overwhelming majority of Americans in ways that we have not experienced for generations.'



As the Democratic primary race tightens, Hillary Clinton has been trying to cast opponent Bernie Sanders as unrealistic and "pie in the sky," but a leading University of Massachusetts economist says such criticisms are "dead wrong" and, in fact, the Vermont senator's proposals are precisely what will "make the economy great again."

In a column published at The Nation on Tuesday, Robert Pollin, distinguished professor in economics at UMass Amherst and co-director of the Political Economy Research Institute (PERI), examines the major policy items under Sanders' economic agenda. These include a single-payer healthcare system; increasing the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour; free tuition at public colleges and universities, to be financed by a "Robin Hood" tax on Wall Street transactions; and large-scale public investments in renewable energy and infrastructure.

Pollin's conclusion: this program works, handily.

"All of his major proposals are grounded in solid economic reasoning and evidence," Pollin states.

"Overall, the Sanders program is capable of raising living standards and reducing insecurity for working people and the poor, expanding higher educational opportunities, and reversing the decades-long trend toward rising inequality," Pollin writes. "It could bring Wall Street’s dominance under control and help prevent a repeat of the financial crisis. It will also strongly support investments in education, clean energy, and public infrastructure, generating millions of good jobs in the process."

Pollin's analysis builds on previous research, including his own. It takes a big-picture look at the potential impact of Sanders' policies, refuting claims made by Clinton and her supporters that they would stymie job and economic growth.

When discussing the minimum wage increase, Pollin dismisses the idea that employers would not be able to absorb the cost of the wage increase. Citing a recent study by PERI colleague Jeannette Wicks-Lim and himself, Pollin states, "even fast-food restaurants, which employ a disproportionate share of minimum wage workers, are likely to see their overall business costs rise by only about 3.4 percent per year during a four-year phase-in for a $15 minimum wage."

Pollin argues that the overall economy will benefit "from the gains in equality tied to the minimum-wage increase," explaining that "greater equality means working people have more spending power, which in turn supports greater overall demand in the economy."

Referencing a paper that he along with a team of UMass economists published earlier this month, Pollin also concludes that the Inclusive Prosperity Act co-sponsored by Sanders in the Senate and U.S. Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.) in the House, "could conservatively generate around $300 billion per year in new government revenue" through a Financial Transaction Tax (FTT), which "would be more than enough to finance in full the Sanders proposal to provide free college tuition for all U.S. students."

At the time of that writing, National Nurses United executive director RoseAnn DeMoropublished a column at Common Dreams which she wrote that it is "no surprise" that "Wall Street moguls, and their surrogates in the media and Washington, hate [the legislation]."

"But," DeMoro added, "shamefully, many in the liberal and Democratic Party elite, from Hillary Clinton to her surrogates in the Democratic National Committee and Congress have also attacked Sanders' social change agenda as 'pie in the sky.'"

In fact, Clinton used that very same language at a rally in Madison, Wisconsin, on Monday,telling supporters that she wasn't a candidate just proposing "pie in the sky stuff" in order to win votes. 

Contrary to the criticisms lobbed against Sanders bold economic plan, Pollin concludes that the agenda would both grow the economy "at a healthy rate," and at the same time "deliver standards of well-being for the overwhelming majority of Americans, as well as the environment, in ways that we have not experienced for generations."

How the FBI's Shadowy iPhone Hack is Putting Privacy (and Lives) at Risk

'We have a new danger,' warn digital rights experts, 'a classified bomb held by the FBI and unknown third-party hackers—but not by Apple, the one party capable of defusing it.'



by


Privacy advocates are warning that if the FBI does not let Apple know how it hacked into the San Bernardino shooter's iPhone, not only would the government be going against its own policy on such matters, it will be putting people's "lives at risk."

On Monday, the FBI backed down from its controversial legal battle to force Apple to develop a backdoor entry into the locked device of Syed Rizwan Farook—instead, breaking into the phone on its own, with the help of Israeli firm Cellebrite.

Apple, along with numerous privacy and rights advocates, argued that the creation of such a tool would open a "Pandora's box," rendering all user-set security features moot.

That box is now breached.

Citing forensics expert Jonathan Ździarski, two digital rights specialists wrote Tuesday that the creation of an iPhone backdoor is akin to "'a bomb on a leash'; a leash that can be undone, legally or otherwise."

With the emergence of the third-party hack, Julia Powles and Enrique Chaparro say, we now "have a new danger: a classified bomb held by the FBI and unknown third-party hackers—but not by Apple, the one party capable of defusing it."

Federal officials "have declined to specify the procedure used to open the iPhone," the New York Times reports, while at the same time Apple "cannot obtain the device to reverse-engineer the problem, the way it would in other hacking situations."

Fight for the Future, a digital and privacy rights group which helped lead opposition to the FBI case, issued a statement Wednesday arguing that if U.S. officials "really care about public safety, they must disclose the vulnerability they used to Apple to prevent criminals, hackers, and terrorists from exploiting the same security flaw and using it to do harm."

The statement continues:
Encryption protects our hospitals, airports, power plants, and water treatment facilities. Sensitive information about critical infrastructure is stored on phones, computers, and in the cloud. The only thing preventing it from falling into the wrong hands is strong security technology.
...And it goes without saying that hackers, other governments, and those wishing to exploit this security flaw to do harm to the public are already hard at work trying to figure it out. Worse, the FBI has a terrible track record of protecting it’s own data. Just recently they leaked personal information about more than 20,000 FBI agents. They’re clearly not capable of keeping this exploit from falling into the wrong hands.
At the same time, as Guardian columnist and Freedom of the Press Foundation co-founder Trevor Timm pointed out on Tuesday, the government is continuing to pursue similar, albeit lower-profile, legal fights. According to the American Civil Liberties Union, there are at least 63 similar cases pending across the country.

As Common Dreams previously reported, this case has never been about "one phone," but rather about setting a judicial precedent.

Timm references a Justice Department statement issued Monday, in which the agency stated it will continue to "pursue all available options [to ensure that law enforcement can obtain crucial digital information] including seeking the cooperation of manufacturers and relying upon the creativity of both the public and private sectors."

"'Pursue all available options' they will," Timm writes:
And their efforts will likely make the entire process even less democratic than it already is. Instead of attempting to ask Congress for a bill to ban the implementation of end-to-end encryption, which they probably know is a non-starter given public resistance, they may now be incentivized to take their fight even further into the shadows, using government secrecy to obscure their actions from the public...
Don’t be surprised if justice department instead attempts to keep future cases sealed from all but Apple’s lawyers, denying the public the right to even know that court battles are going on for as long as possible. Or perhaps they’ll go to the ultra-secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance court and demand the same thing, where they’re even more likely to be able to argue with no opposing side present and will all but ensure the public won’t find out what happened for years.
Advocates, including the Electronic Frontier Foundation, are pointing to the U.S. government's official policy, known as the the Vulnerabilities Equities Process (VEP), for determining when to disclose a security vulnerability—such as the one Cellebrite supposedly just cracked.

"As a panel of experts hand-picked by the White House recognized, any decision to withhold a security vulnerability for intelligence or law enforcement purposes leaves ordinary users at risk from malicious third parties who also may use the vulnerability," the digital rights group stated on Tuesday.

"If the FBI used a vulnerability to get into the iPhone in the San Bernardino case, the VEP must apply," EFF continues, "meaning that there should be a very strong bias in favor of informing Apple of the vulnerability. That would allow Apple to fix the flaw and protect the security of all its users."

The Clinton Investigation Enters a Dangerous Phase

The FBI investigation of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s failure to protect state secrets contained in her emails has entered its penultimate phase, and it is a dangerous one for her and her aides.
Federal law enforcement sources have let it be known that federal prosecutors and the FBI have completed their examination of raw data in the case. After the FBI acquires raw data – for example, the nature and number of the state secrets in the emails Clinton failed to protect or the regular, consistent, systematic nature of that failure – prosecutors and agents proceed to draw rational inferences from that data.
Then they proceed to corroborate those inferences, looking for other sources to support or even to contradict them. With one exception, all of this work has been done with neutral sources of evidence – documents, email metadata, government records and technical experts.
The exception is Bryan Pagliano, the one member of Clinton’s inner circle who, with either a written promise of non-prosecution or an order of immunity from a federal judge, began to cooperate with federal prosecutors last fall.
Here is what he told the feds.
Pagliano has explained to federal prosecutors the who, what, when, how and why he migrated an open State Department email stream and a secret State Department email stream from government computers to Clinton’s secret server in her home in Chappaqua, New York. He has told them that Clinton paid him $5,000 to commit that likely criminal activity.
He has also told some of the 147 FBI agents assigned to this case that Clinton herself was repeatedly told by her own State Department information technology experts and their colleagues at the National Security Agency that her persistent use of her off-the-shelf BlackBerry was neither an effective nor an acceptable means of receiving, transmitting or safeguarding state secrets. Little did they know how reckless she was with government secrets, as none was apparently then aware of her use of her non-secure secret server in Chappaqua for all of her email uses.
We know that the acquisition and corroboration phase of the investigation has been completed because the prosecutors have begun to ask Clinton’s top aides during her time as secretary of state to come in for interviews. This is a delicate and dangerous phase for the aides, all of whom have engaged counsel to represent them.
Here are the dangers.
The Department of Justice will not reveal to the aides or their lawyers what it knows about the case or what evidence of criminal wrongdoing, if any, it has acquired on each of them. Hence, if they submit to an FBI interview, they will go in "blind." By going in blind, the aides run the risk of getting caught in a "perjury trap." Though not under oath, they could be trapped into lying by astute prosecutors and aggressive FBI agents, as it is a crime – the equivalent of perjury – to lie to them or materially mislead them.
For this reason, most white-collar criminal defense lawyers will not permit their clients to be interviewed by any prosecutors or FBI agents. Martha Stewart’s lawyers failed to give her that advice, and she went to prison for one lie told in one conversation with one FBI agent.
After interviewing any Clinton aides who choose to be interviewed, the DOJ personnel on the case will move their investigation into its final phase, in which they will ask Clinton herself whether she wishes to speak with them. The prosecutors will basically tell her lawyers that they have evidence of the criminal behavior of their client and that before they present it to a grand jury, they want to afford Clinton an opportunity blindly to challenge it.
This will be a moment she must devoutly wish would pass from her, as she will face a damned-if-you-do, damned-if-you-don’t dilemma.
Here is her dilemma.
If she were to talk to federal prosecutors and FBI agents, they would catch her in many inconsistencies, as she has spoken with great deception in public about this case. She has, for example, stated many times that she used the private server so she could have one mobile device for all of her emails. The FBI knows she had four mobile devices. She has also falsely claimed publicly and under oath that she neither sent nor received anything "marked classified." The FBI knows that nothing is marked classified, and its agents also know that her unprotected secret server transmitted some of the nation’s gravest secrets.
The prosecutors and agents cannot be happy about her public lies and her repeated demeaning attitude about their investigation, and they would have an understandable animus toward her if she were to meet with them.
If she were to decline to be interviewed – a prudent legal but treacherous political decision – the feds would leak her rejection of their invitation, and political turmoil would break loose because one of her most imprudent and often repeated public statements in this case has been that she can’t wait to talk to the FBI. That’s a lie, and the FBI knows it.
Some Democrats who now understand the gravity of the case against Clinton have taken to arguing lately that the feds should establish a different and higher bar – a novel and unknown requirement for a greater quantum of evidence and proof of a heavier degree of harm – before Clinton can be prosecuted. They have suggested this merely because she is the likely Democratic presidential nominee.
The public will never stand for that. America has a bedrock commitment to the rule of law. The rule of law means that no one is beneath the law’s protections or above its requirements. The DOJ is not in the business of rewriting the law, but the Democrats should get in the business of rethinking Clinton’s status as their presumptive presidential nominee, lest a summer catastrophe come their way.
Andrew P. Napolitano, a former judge of the Superior Court of New Jersey, is the senior judicial analyst at Fox News Channel. Judge Napolitano has written seven books on the US Constitution. The most recent is Suicide Pact: The Radical Expansion of Presidential Powers and the Lethal Threat to American Liberty. To find out more about Judge Napolitano and to read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit www.creators.com.
COPYRIGHT 2014 ANDREW P. NAPOLITANO – DISTRIBUTED BY CREATORS.COM
http://original.antiwar.com/andrew-p-napolitano/2016/03/30/the-clinton-investigation-enters-a-dangerous-phase/

Hillary Clinton Turned a Stable, Developed Nation Into an ISIS Safe Haven. That’s the Real Benghazi Scandal



  • Riley WaggamanFormer Wonkette editor; current vagrant
  • As mandated by the PATRIOT Act, every election year Rudy Giuliani must appear on national television and say “9/11” - and every American knows this and looks forward to it. But television viewers across the nation were left confused and befuddled after the former New York City mayor veered off script during a recent appearance on Fox News. As Politico explains:
    Speaking to Bill O’Reilly on Fox News, the former New York City mayor said that [Hillary Clinton] “helped create ISIS” through her involvement with President Barack Obama’s efforts to withdraw from Iraq.
    We’re somewhat surprised that Rudy would malign the only other human on earth who invokes 9/11 to explain the Ocean’s tides. But there is an obtuse nugget of truth buried deep within his blood-soaked word salad.
    Giuliani wants us to believe that the world is a more dangerous place because Hillary Clinton is a prude who doesn’t like to bomb brown people countries. Yes, the world is a more dangerous place - but for the exact opposite reason: Clinton’s penchant for interventionism has contributed to destabilizing the Middle East and North Africa, creating ideal conditions for ISIS to grow and thrive. In this sense, she really did “help create ISIS.”
    As a ferocious supporter of invading of Iraq, in 2003 then-Senator Clinton insistedthat Saddam Hussein was giving “sanctuary” to terrorists. Aside from being total baloney nonsense, the dark irony is that the invasion transformed Iraq into an enormous terrorist incubator: A top military adviser to General David Petraeus hasstated plainly that “there undeniably would be no ISIS if we had not invaded Iraq” and “we have to recognize that a lot of the problem [in the Middle East] is of our own making.”
    But if we’re going to argue that Hillary Clinton has enabled ISIS and other terrorist groups - and that’s exactly what we’re arguing - we should focus our attention on her tireless advocacy for turning Libya into a moon crater.
    Not many people give Clinton the proper credit she deserves for destroying Libya for no reason whatsoever. Shame on them.
    As a brave crusader for all women - especially for women living in countries that she desperately wants to bomb - then-Secretary Clinton argued that the United States had a moral duty to intervene in Libya, stating that she was “deeply concerned” that Muammar Gaddafi’s troops were using rape as a weapon. (She was parroting a rumor started by Al-Jazeera which claimed that Gaddafi was handing out free Viagra to his soldiers so that they could rape 24/7.)
    After Libya was flattened by NATO’s “no fly zone”, Amnesty International published a report which thoroughly debunked Hillary’s passionate plea for war:
    Not only have we not met any [rape] victims, but we have not even met any persons who have met victims. As for the boxes of Viagra that Gaddafi is supposed to have had distributed, they were found intact near tanks that were completely burnt out.
    The boxes of pristine Viagra found next to burnt-out tanks weren’t the only things planted in Libya. According to its report, Amnesty “failed to find evidence for these human rights violations [used to justify intervention] and in many cases has discredited or cast doubt on them. It also found indications that on several occasions the rebels in Benghazi appeared to have knowingly made false claims or manufactured evidence.”
    The icing on the illegal war cake is that before Hillary started spreading rape rumors, Libya was considered a “high human development” country by the United Nations:
    In 2010, Libya ranked 53rd in the UN’s Human Development Index among 163 countries. With life expectancy at birth at 74.5 years, an 88.4% adult literacy rate and a gross enrolment ratio of 94.1%, Libya was classified as a high human development country among the Middle East and North Africa region.
    Libyans once enjoyed a higher standard of living than two-thirds of the planet. Now their country is terrorist stronghold ruled by competing warlords.
    And as ISIS continues to lose territory in Syria and Iraq, Libya is increasingly seen as a fertile ground for jihadists. According to The Atlantic:
    American intelligence officials estimate that the group’s ranks in Libya have grown to 6,500 fighters, more than doubling since the fall. ISIS first declared its intentions to establish a presence in Libya in 2014 and has been launching attacks ever since. The group is now thought to control 150 miles of Libyan coastline.
    Hillary Clinton turned a stable, developed nation into an ISIS safe haven using tactics that would have made even William Randolph Hearst a bit queasy. To whip up support for the Spanish-American War (you’re probably too young to remember it), America’s favorite yellow journalist only managed to invent tame, PG -13 fairytales about Spanish soldiers fondling young Cuban damsels. If Hearst had reported that the Spaniards were having Havana Viagra parties, we could have marched all the way to Madrid. Hopefully President Clinton will remedy this missed opportunity. Pack your bags, ISIS. Next stop: Spain.
    Forget Benghazi. Clinton is culpable in a far greater crime.

Treasury Secretary: Overuse of Sanctions Undermines US Position in Global Economy


Says US Has Responsibility to Uphold Pledge to Ease Iran Sanctions


by Jason Ditz, 



US Secretary of the Treasury Jack Lew gave a speech today at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, where he warned against the US overuse of sanctions against other nations, saying it risks undermining the US position as a leader in global trade.
Lew also said that since the US goals for sanctions were to pressure “bad actors to change their policy,” it was vital for the US to be quick with sanctions relief when they succeed, saying the US risks undermining its own credibility by not lifting sanctions.
Lew made it clear he was talking about Iran in that last case, saying Iran has “kept its end of the deal,” and that it is “our responsibility to uphold ours in both letter and spirit.” Iran has complained the US has removed many of the agreed to sanctions “on paper only” and that international banks still fear US retaliation for doing business with Iran.
In the case of the Iran sanctions, it indeed seems to be undercutting US companies who were vying for Iranian contracts, as Iran seems to be exclusively contracting with European and Asian companies for its economic reconstruction, and is increasingly resistant to doing business in US dollars because of the problems with banking.
http://news.antiwar.com/2016/03/30/treasury-secretary-overuse-of-sanctions-undermines-us-position-in-global-economy/

Trump calls Geneva Conventions 'the problem'

APPLETON, Wis. — Donald Trump believes American troops are afraid to fight for fear of violating the Geneva Conventions, he said Wednesday.

“The problem is we have the Geneva Conventions, all sorts of rules and regulations, so the soldiers are afraid to fight,” Trump said at an afternoon town hall during remarks on torture.
“We can’t waterboard, but they can chop off heads,” Trump said, referring to the United States and the Islamic State, respectively. “I think we’ve got to make some changes, some adjustments.”

The Geneva Conventions, adopted broadly after World War II, govern the treatment of civilians and prisoners of war — including a ban on torture and summary executions. They mirror rules the U.S. adopted in 1882.

Trump has called for changing laws that govern interrogation techniques to “bring back a hell of a lot worse than waterboarding.”

Trump has also previously said that American troops would not disobey him if he gave them illegal orders, but he later walked that remark back.

A campaign spokeswoman did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Wednesday’s remarks.
Ben Schreckinger is a reporter for Politico.


Read more: http://www.politico.com/blogs/2016-gop-primary-live-updates-and-results/2016/03/donald-trump-geneva-conventions-221394#ixzz44SeWtbBs 
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Netanyahu Furious as US Lawmakers Seek Probe of Israel’s Extrajudicial Killings


Letter Expresses Concern About 'Grave' Human Rights Violations


by Jason Ditz, 



Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu today expressed outrage at Sen. Patrick Leahy (D – VT) and a number of other Congressmen over their request that the State Department investigate reports of extrajudicial killings by Israeli security forces.
Netanyahu insisted Israeli security forces “are not murderers” and that it is wholly inappropriate to investigate them for the killings they do. This comes amid a high-profile legal dispute within Israel over an IDF medic killing an already wounded and disarmed Palestinian, though that killing wasn’t specifically mentioned in the Leahy letter.
The letter did mentionAmnesty International and other NGOs reporting several other similar killings, along with the use of torture against certain detainees, including Wasim Marouf. The Leahy Law bars the State and Defense Departments from providing military aid to nations that violate human rights.
Questions about Israel’s routine use of open-ended detention, abuse of detainees, and summary executions of Palestinians are nothing new, though having US Congressmen actually raise such questions certainly is, as traditionally Israel has been viewed as immune from criticism among US lawmakers.
Netanyahu’s outrage is similarly par for the course, though the fact that he was just in the middle of a particularly ugly battle over an extrajudicial killing, and that polls have shown the vast majority of Israelis oppose any legal ramifications for a soldier executing a Palestinian in violation of orders adds considerable intrigue to the matter.
The Leahy letter also mentions the other major recipient of US military aid, Egypt, though since the Obama Administration ignored a military coup d’etat and wholesale massacres on the streets of major Egyptian cities in the wake of that coup, it’s hard to imagine complaints about repeated disappearances of dissidents is going to amount to anything.

http://news.antiwar.com/2016/03/30/netanyahu-furious-as-us-lawmakers-seek-probe-of-israels-extrajudicial-killings/

US Warns Assad Against Forming New Coalition With Opposition


US Won't Accept Any Government That Includes Assad


by Jason Ditz, 
With some progress apparently being made in the peace talks, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad says he believes a new constitution could be ready in a matter of weeks and a new unity government, including both the existing government and rebel factions, could be formed with little difficulty.
Convincing the rebels, such as they are, may not be the tough part, however, as the White House was quick to condemn Assad’s comments, and to warn that the US will never recognize any Syrian government that includes Assad.
The US has made regime change their stated goal in Syria for years, and has been bankrolling a series of not particularly successful rebel outfits to try to see that happen. White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest insisted a government including Assad is an “obvious” non-starter.
Exactly what the US can do about it is unclear, however, as they already backed the peace process that seems to be leading to that government, and grousing about the Syrian decision to unify after advocating unification talks probably won’t win them a lot of fans.
Assad suggested the new government would include a cabinet primarily of technocrats, and gave the impression that the draft constitution would give way to free elections, something Russia has advocated as a route to ending the civil war, and which the US has insisted they would condition on banning Assad and certain of his allies from participation.
http://news.antiwar.com/2016/03/30/us-warns-assad-against-forming-new-coalition-with-opposition/

US to Increase Armored Brigades in Eastern Europe

Pentagon to Roll Back 2012 Obama Cuts in Early 2017



by Jason Ditz,
In 2012, the Obama Administration cut a pair of army brigades from Europe, in an effort to save money and to shift forces to other more combat–heavy areas. In early 2017, after Obama leaves office, the brigades will return.
The Pentagon is now saying they intend to send rotations of armored combat brigades to Eastern Europe, bringing the continued presence of combat forces back to where it was in 2011.
NATO Supreme Commander Gen. Philip Breedlove touted the deployments, claiming they are a “strong and balanced” response to Russia’s “aggression.” Breedlove is among several NATO officials who have been claiming Russia might invade Eastern Europe, and have been pushing ever-more US troops for the region.
The deployment isn’t a total rollback to the 2011 presence, as the previous US troops were largely in Germany, and the new ones will be rotating around Poland and the Baltic states, with an eye toward keeping them along the Russian border.
In recent military budgets, the US has been adding more and more troops to the Russian frontier, even though the predictions of a Russian invasion never panned out, and there are no signs they are slowing down those deployments.
http://news.antiwar.com/2016/03/30/us-to-increase-armored-brigades-in-eastern-europe/