latvia military size

Latvia Military Size - The Baltic played a long time against Russia, the Kremlin fell, but not out of Ukraine, and the Baltic states wanted to make sure they did not follow.

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Latvia Military Size

Soldiers take part in a military exercise at Adazi military base northeast of Riga, Latvia, March 8, 2022.

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Soldiers take part in a military exercise at Adazi military base northeast of Riga, Latvia, March 8, 2022. Toms Norde / AFP / Getty Images

ADAZI, Latvia — Adazi military camp is seeing troops from several NATO countries - including Latvia, Canada, Spain, Italy and Poland - running between pre-military camps in a small Baltic country.

Heading for the exercise, nicknamed the Silver Arrow, is a modern US artillery system known as HIMARS, which has been hailed as a "game changer" for Ukraine in its months-long struggle against Russian invasion. For Colonel Igors Harlapenkovs, director of the Joint Chiefs of Staff at the exercise, it was about the ability of the NATO forces to test tensions in transporting ships quickly and sending military equipment to the eastern part of NATO.

"The idea is that we will train ourselves to work with whatever the United States or NATO can deliver as soon as possible," Harlapenkovs said.

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His quiet career is in stark contrast to the geopolitical tensions that Latvia has been embroiled in since Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February.

Many experts fear that if Russian President Vladimir Putin succeeds in seizing land in Ukraine, the three small Baltic states bordering Russia and its ally Belarus on the eastern side of NATO could be the next target. His.

But officials in the vulnerable Baltic states were quick to make it clear that they were not waiting for the Russian invasion. Even before Putin's invasion of Ukraine, NATO began placing more troops and military equipment in the Baltic states and increasing the duration of its military exercises to test their troops and prevent Moscow from playing any power. In this narrow territory of NATO.

Despite its small size and defense budget, Latvia is increasing its military force, even though it is transporting large quantities of weapons to Ukraine, as it can mobilize and host NATO troops. The idea is to send a message to Putin: any action on the Baltic states will be worthless. Latvia has also approved a plan to end dependence on Russia for energy imports and reduce broadcasts from Russian media. Latvia, like its neighbors in the east of NATO, is preparing for a long game against Russia, trying to make as many plans and preparations as possible to show that the Kremlin is ready. For any future military confrontation.

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Latvian Defense Minister Artis Pabriks told US Foreign Policy and a small group of US experts during a discussion hosted by the German Marshall Research Institute: "I do not think this war will weaken Russia. "It will stop threatening us." .

The Adazi base, located on a dense forest plain in the northeast of Riga, the capital of Latvia, shows all the key points of future war preparations. Gravel fields full of supplies in construction equipment transport containers are struggling with infrastructure improvements, and heavy trucks roll in and out of warehouses ahead of military exercises.

Latvian leaders have called for an increase in defense spending to 3 percent of GDP (up from about 2.3 percent in 2021 and less than 1 percent in 2014), according to two Latvian officials. Speaking on condition of anonymity. Latvia is embarking on a plan to rebuild its military, which was scrapped in the mid-2000s. It is also building new infrastructure to receive troops from other NATO countries as they conduct exercises. Latvian officials say the government's plan is to start surrender by calling nearly 1,000 Latvians next year and aim to increase the number to 6,000 by 2028.

The plan comes under renewed urgency after Putin on Wednesday ordered the mobilization of 300,000 reservists to fill the ranks of his army, which was lost after nearly seven months of war in Ukraine - a decision that could affect To Russia's depleted resources. . The army is unarmed and is causing serious political unrest in Russia. During his speech, Putin warned against further Western support for Ukraine, with a stern warning about Russia's nuclear weapons if the West focused on Russia's "territorial integrity."

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"Putin is always very dangerous," German Chancellor Olaf Scholz told NBC News on Wednesday. "And now he's desperate and he's making decisions that are growing, but I'm sure this will not help him."

There was no immediate threat of a Russian attack on the Baltic states, local officials insisted. Unlike Ukraine, Latvia and neighboring Estonia and Lithuania belong to NATO, thus being protected by a common defense alliance backed by the nuclear powers of the United States, Britain, and France. Russia, meanwhile, has withdrawn most of its ground forces from the Nordic-Baltic region to try and resist its military sanctions on Ukraine, providing the region with rare and limited relief.

But the Baltic states still see a long-term threat from Russia, despite the escalation of the war in Ukraine. "There is no emergency, but there is a dangerous situation," said Janis Kazocins, Latvia national security adviser and former director of the intelligence agency. "Russia will remain a long-term threat, even if its military is divided in Ukraine. We will have Russia as our neighbor forever."

Unlike Ukraine, Latvia has a smaller geography. There is not much basis to dedicate to buying time to reorganize and counter possible military aggression - what defense planners call "strategic depth" in military language. That means that if the worst happens and Russia launches a future invasion, Latvia needs to be prepared to take NATO troops and weapons to rush to the front line as quickly as possible.

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"The distance to Russia from here is only 200 kilometers [or 124 miles]," Harlapenkovs said. "So we do not have time. We have to train to deploy the assets as soon as they come. Our biggest homework is to make plans and training in peace that we can use for our defense if we Need it later.

Most NATO allies, meanwhile, have joined the chaos of organization and tolerance by expanding the Baltic alliance through an initiative called "Enhanced Forward Presence", which includes Canadian-led fighters in the country. Latvia. After seeing how the Russian military mistakenly mistakenly attempted to attack Ukraine - and the serious war crimes committed by Russian soldiers against Ukrainian citizens in Bucha, Izyum and other Ukrainian cities they occupied during Short - NATO has been changing its strategy for a long time. Short-term blockade against Russia. It tends to be a strategy of trying to prevent an attack from the beginning, rather than simply threatening a major military response after an invasion or land grab.

"Imprisonment is no longer appropriate. We should move towards denial by denial," Kazocins said in military language for the new approach from NATO.

The Adazi base represents this new era in the minds of defense planners. With 3,000 employees, Polish tank houses, Canadian and Czech artillery systems, Italian tank destroyers and more. At the nearby Lielvarde base, US Apache helicopters are deployed with ground-to-air missile systems made by Norway and Spain. These allied units combined and trained from brigade level to team level for incidents that everyone in the West prayed for never happened.

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"If you are a small Baltic country, you can not give up your defense because Russia is not doing well today," said Jim Townsend, a former senior US Secretary of Defense who works on NATO security issues. . "We do not know where Russia will be in the next 10 years. So the important thing now is not to let your guard down.

Joint session of the House of Representatives to count the votes from the College of Voting from the 2008 Presidential Election of the United States House of Representatives. January 8, 2009 in Washington, DC.

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