U.S. Puts 8,500 Troops on High Alert as Tension Rises Between NATO & Russia over Ukraine

The U.S. has prepared some 8,500 troops to deploy to Eastern Europe in the event that Russia invades Ukraine, which Russian President Vladimir Putin denies is his goal. On Wednesday, officials from Russia, Ukraine, France, and Germany are scheduled to meet in Paris to negotiate to resolve the crisis.

“The security of Europe ought to be principally Europe’s business,” says Anatol Lieven, a senior fellow at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft. “This whole notion of great power competition, which is embedded in the National Defense Strategy, has been used as kind of the magic key to keeping Pentagon spending at near-record levels,” says national security expert William Hartung, a research fellow at the Quincy Institute.

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