Adding to the ongoing efforts of US military officials involved in the NATO alliance constantly beating the war drums about Russia, Gen. Ben Hodges today gave an interview claiming that NATO had no ability to defend the Baltic states from a Russian invasion.

The US has been pushing major NATO military deployments into the tiny Baltic states, and is constantly advocating more. Despite this, Hodges claimed that Russia could conquer the whole area is 36-60 hours.

The comments come in spite of a public statement two days ago from NATO’s current military commander, Czech Gen. Petr Pavel, saying that there is absolutely no intelligence suggesting that there was any possibility of Russia invading the area in the first place.

That it’s an illusory threat seems very much beside the point for Hodges, who further complained that NATO needs significantly better communications abilities and the ability to mass troops in the Baltics must faster than they currently can.

Hodges also took a shot at Germany and France over the recent NATO military exercise in Poland, saying the two nations had forced NATO to publicize it as a “Polish” operation instead of an alliance-wide one to avoid offending the Russians.