Dr. Janice Stein

That's why we're in Latvia, Peter.

It's the same kind of reasoning.

It's not the size of our deployment.

It's the fact that we are willing, NATO is willing to put forces on the ground.

And that is a strong signal to anybody.

that if they attack, it's a tripwire.

It's what we call a tripwire.

If they attack, we are signaling we have stakes in the game.

We're telling Russia we have stakes in the game, so don't even think about doing this.

And it's been a very effective strategy.

It's both, right?

It's a straight up fit of peak.

And let's talk about the peak for one minute.

Merz went to speak to some high school students and he probably used the phrase most likely to get under Donald Trump's skin, which is he said Iran has humiliated the people of the United States by how good they've been at negotiating with the United States.

Well, if you want to get Donald Trump going, you did that with that statement, that's for sure.

But the brigade that's being removed, just about 5,000, was sent to Germany after Russia invaded Ukraine.

It was not there before.

And there were discussions now for months that...

It was there was no longer needed and that it was going to be pulled out.

And that had nothing to do with what the chancellor said or did.