The U.S. State Department has approved the sale of four Blackhawk helicopters to Latvia for an estimated cost of $200 million. This does not mean that a deal is made, but if Latvia decides to buy Blackhawk, they will get a good and reliable helicopter.
Latvia
Latvia buys Spike anti-tank missiles
Latvia has signed a deal to purchase Spike anti-tank missiles from Israel for a total sum of €108 million. That reports Latvian Public Broadcasting. Spike is a very capable weapon, which is comparable to the American Javelin system that neighboring Estonia recently purchased. The weapons will be delivered to Latvia until 2023. The exact number […]
SOF supported guerrilla warfare is the realistic military scenario in the Baltic States
This terrific article by James K. Wither is a must-read for everyone concerned with military strategy in the Baltic region. It is published in Small Wars Journal under the title ”Modern Guerrillas” and the Defense of the Baltic States. The best prospect to deter or if necessary defend an attack on the Baltic States remains […]
More US soldiers and Baltic Sea Policing Mission among ICDS recommendations for NATO
How should the United States and NATO prioritize their resources to the Baltic States? That is the topic of this policy paper that Erik Marmei and Gabriel White have written for ICDS. The policy paper outlines a series of weaknesses with the defense in the Baltic States. It is pointed out that despite the fact […]
The Baltic nations would be hard to beat
One of the things that I didn’t touch on in my description about how a war between Russia and the West will play out was the resistance that the populations of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania would muster after a Russian occupation. That was a deliberate omission because you just can’t fit everything into one piece, […]
Maybe former Soviet republics don’t like to be Russia’s “sphere of interest”
Mikhail Barabanov in Moscow Defense Brief: Russia holds the Zapad drills along its western borders once every four years; the previous such event took place in 2013. This year, however, the reaction from some of Russia’s neighbors to the west has been nothing short of hysterical. […] For all the Western concerns, the scenario of […]
Latvia more vulnerable to disinformation than other Baltic States
Latvia scores lower than the other Baltic States on the Disinformation Resilience Index (via icds.ee): Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania: who is better equipped to counter disinformation? Estonia developed noticeably higher quality of systemic responses to disinformation campaigns than the other Baltic States. Lithuanians are much less exposed to Russian media environment as Russian-speaking part of […]
Latvia receives first howitzers
Latvia has received the first batch of self-propelled howitzers. The 155 mm/39 self-propelled howitzers M109A5Öe are part of a deal with Austria to buy a total of 47 armored vehicles. All of them are of the M109 family, but only 35 are howitzers. The remaining are 10 fire control vehicles and two machines for training […]
Jamming of phones and GPS during Zapad causes concerns
Did Russia jam GPS signals in Norway and phone services in Latvia and Sweden and during exercise Zapad in September? Apparently there are many indications that they did, and now Secretary-General of NATO Jens Stoltenberg has expressed his concerns about the Russian demonstrations of electronic warfare capabilities. Ideally, military units have redundant systems so they […]
Danish admiral says submarines are flagrant waste of money
The Defense Commission of the Danish parliament yesterday conducted a hearing on the question of whether Denmark should reintroduce submarines and sea mines in the naval arsenal. Both were phased out in 2005 but especially the importance of submarines has been a question of intense debate ever since. Rear admiral Nils Wang, commandant of the […]