Army Chief Gen. Mark Milley is pushing his recommendation that the 4-25 Airborne Brigade of the US Army remain stationed in Anchorage, Alaska for “at least an additional year,” amid calls to cut costs by eliminating the brigade.

The excuse, as usual, is Russia. Gen. Milley insists “Russian aggression” is present not just in Europe, where the Pentagon has been getting money to throw ever more money at the Russian frontier, but also in the Arctic, and that the US needs to keep troops in Alaska to counter Russia.

The deployments into Eastern Europe were sold on the claim that a Russian invasion of the region is “imminent,” though talk of an impending invasion has lost a lot of credibility over the last year and a half.

The vague notion of Russia invading the NATO hinterlands in Latvia and Lithuania has survived on those nations’ remoteness, and their eagerness to get Western funding to station troops around their countries. It seems much harder to advance the narrative that Russia might suddenly invade a US state out of the blue.