activation would be a nato decision to make and that would be up to the secretary general, of course, in consultation with the commander of allied forces in europe, general walters, president biden has agreed to make these troops available to the task force, if, in fact, it's activated but not all of the troops we were talking about yesterday are, in fact, designated just for the readiness force for nato. some of these are also being told to be on a heightened alert just for our own united states purposes to see if there's a need for us to continue to reassure on a bilateral basis with some of our nato allies over in europe. >> how quickly could these troops be heading overseas? i know it takes them from a state of readiness from ten days to five days and kind of progresses from there, but how quickly do you envision they could be heading over? >> we don't know the answer to that, kate. all we've done here, kate, is put them on heightened alert posture on a shorter bit of a tether there but there's been no