NATO: Do Your Bit in Wales Latvia

Enjoy the security in return for the sharing of responsibilities

President Putin On 1st July laid out Russia’s foreign and security policy priorities to Russian ambassadors and Heads of Mission at a closed door meeting in Moscow. Two themes stood out: the primacy of the Russian national interest and a specifically Russian interpretation of international law.

Whilst Putin’s statement by and large re-confirmed then President Medvedev’s 2008 Sochi statement entitled “Five Principles of the New World Order”, Putin used strong language to reinforce the lengths Moscow will go to assure its interests and ‘protect’ those who regard themselves as Russian, including the use of “self-defence”. With Moscow now spending 20% of all public funding on defence and with expenditure planned on Russia’s armed forces of some $700 billion by 2020, it is important that President Putin’s words are treated with respect.

Therefore, as a regular participant at the Riga Conference and a good friend and admirer of Latvia, it is vital that Riga helps lead the way back to strategic seriousness not just across the Baltic States, but across the Alliance.

Indeed, if Latvia does not, it will be very hard to convince publics in other NATO European states to increase defence investment to at least 2% GDP, which America and Britain are demanding.

British commitment was underlined this summer by the launch of the first of the British super-carriers HMS Queen Elizabeth. Now is the time for Latvia to act. The September NATO Summit in Wales is rapidly approaching. The issue of the future collective defence of the Alliance will be high on the Summit agenda, the foundation stone of the Transatlantic strategic security and defence relationship. At 1% GDP Latvia’s defence budget is half that demanded by Allies. Make no mistake, if by September Latvia is not in a position to reassure the United States, Britain and other powerful allies that Latvia is taking specific and urgent steps to increase its dangerously low defence budget, all-important Alliance solidarity will be damaged.

There is a general political agreement to raise the defence budget to 2% by 2020, but in Wales Latvia must make specific commitments. Latvia, together with its Baltic neighbours and Poland are painfully aware that with Russia’s military intervention in Ukraine the strategic situation has changed and is changing rapidly.

As part of the Alliance Latvia is on the front-line of Russia’s attempts to reassert a new sphere of explicit and implicit influence around its borders.

It is not without import that Russia has emphasised EU ‘expansionism’ into Ukraine as a reason for its actions. The EU is established on the principle that there can be no spheres of influence in Europe, which directly counters the Greater Russia doctrine President Putin espouses. Latvia’s neighbour Estonia as a eurozone and NATO member clearly understands that European integration will only work if assured by credible defence investment in the wider transatlantic strategic security relationship. Frankly, it is Tallinn’s broad strategic appreciation that enables Estonia to punch above its weight within NATO.

This is a critical moment to show that Latvia understands the changed security environment and is ready to respond. Your economy has made a remarkable recovery the last few years. Credit ratings are reaching pre-crisis levels. Of course, Riga is under pressure from teachers, health workers and others, who no doubt also demand more money, as they do in Britain after years of painful austerity. However, surely your history teaches you that it is unwise to neglect payments for your own security “insurance policy”.

You can, of course, choose to free-ride on the rest of us. After all, nobody is going to throw Latvia out of NATO. We British will fulfil the debt of history we owe you.

However, Latvian defence under-investment is an under-investment in Latvia’s own security and defence self-interest.

This is because Latvia must be seen to be investing in the twenty-first century strategic contract implicit in NATO: Latvia gets to enjoy the security of the most powerful in return for the sharing of responsibilities.

That contract could at some time break, something a strategically-adept Moscow fully understands. The United States is under growing pressure in the Asia-Pacific region and becoming increasingly frustrated with European allies whose defence under-investment clearly indicates that they expect America to do their defending for them.

Therefore, Latvia must show the way at Celtic Manor and in so doing give Prime Minister Cameron the chance to make the vital Wales Summit a strategic as well as a political success. More importantly, through action and not simply words Latvia must give President Obama a strong endorsement for continued American leadership of an Alliance that must be credible in the face of the dangerous challenges that doubtless lay ahead.

A couple of years ago I called on all NATO Allies to stand up to the Riga Test and demonstrate to the good people of Riga that they can sleep soundly in their beds, safe in the knowledge that the protective blanket on the Alliance is all-embracing. The strategic bottom line is this: if Latvia does not help itself, how can Latvia expect the rest of us to help Latvia?

It is time for Latvia to make the hard choices and set the hard priorities sound defence and a strong NATO demands.

Professor Dr Julian Lindley-French is Director of Europa Analytica, Senior Fellow of the Institute of Statecraft in London and Distinguished Visiting Research Fellow of the National Defense University in Washington DC. The views expressed herein are entirely those of the author alone.