In an April 2018 episode of Saturday Night Live, President Donald Trump zones out during a press conference with the leaders of the three Baltic states — Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania — preferring to focus on such pressing issues as Roseanne and the Lithuanian president’s hair. Soon, the episode pivots from issues of foreign policy to domestic politics, much closer to home for an American audience.
While many Americans certainly laughed at the president’s antics during this episode, citizens in the Baltic states are not laughing about America’s lack of concern for their nations. Indeed, Trump’s stance on NATO and perceived cozying up to Russia have deeply worried leaders of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, especially as they rely on the United States and NATO to maintain their defense against a much more powerful Russia.
Russia has always cast a large shadow on the small Baltic states, and recent events in Crimea and elsewhere have only made them more leery of a potential Russian invasion. Although they face significant challenges in dealing with their larger neighbor, the Baltic states have strong tools at their disposal to fight Russian aggression and even the playing field, at least in some areas.
Alarming Trends
Since the Baltic states gained independence from the Soviet Union in 1991, they have “never had a particularly great relationship with Russia,” especially considering their recent trajectory toward the West, NATO, and the European Union, Mitchell Orenstein, a professor of Russian and East European studies at the University of Pennsylvania, told the HPR.
Several overarching concerns make the Baltic states particularly antsy, especially Russia’s generally aggressive posturing. During his testimony before the Senate Appropriations Committee, Rolandas Krišciunas, Lithuania’s ambassador to the United States, expressed worries about the rise of Russian militarism, nationalism, chauvinism, and expansionist foreign policy. Krišciunas also expressed concerns about Russia’s campaigns to foment division and polarization across Europe and its growing rejection of international treaties. Furthermore, Russia’s campaigns operate at “a level where it’s very easy for Russia to either deny it’s involved or to simply say you don’t have any proof,” which makes it hard to deter and punish attacks, Ulrich Kühn, a senior researcher at the Institute for Peace Research and Security Policy at the University of Hamburg, told the HPR. This New Generation Warfare, as Kühn described it, is “meant to make Western societies feel extremely vulnerable and feel that their security is at risk.”
An additional concern is the large population of Russian speakers within the Baltic states. Thirty-five percent of Latvians speak Russian as their primary language, while almost 30 percent of Estonians are Russian speakers. This creates concerns about the loyalty of these populations to the state. “A lot of Latvians regard the Russian-speaking population as a fifth column, and there’s a lot of distrust in how committed they are to Latvian statehood,” Orenstein told the HPR. He continued: “Likewise, the Russian speaking population feels discriminated against,” especially because many hold only Russian citizenship or no citizenship at all. Since Russia used the protection of Russian citizens as an excuse to invade Georgia, Eastern Ukraine, and Crimea, the Baltic states fear that Russia will use this same excuse to invade them. Estonia in particular worries that Russia will annex Narva, a heavily Russian-speaking area right on the border, while Latvia has similar worries with its Latgale region.
Minding the Military
“There’s no question that Russia could easily invade the Baltics” due to the sheer size of Russian forces, Orenstein told the HPR. Although definite numbers are unknown, Russia could invade at any time with more than 845,000 troops, 2,600 tanks, and 5,500 artillery pieces. Geography also poses an important concern. “Russia … could cut through Polish and Lithuanian territory, basically leaving the three Baltic states to be cut off from reinforcement routes in Poland,” Kühn told the HPR.
Recent actions have increased Baltic jitters about Russian military aggression. Several military analysts raised fears that a major Russian military exercise, Zapad 2017, was a dry run for an invasion of the Baltics. Additionally, the growing militarization of the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad has certainly worried Baltic states, which lie within the firing range of Russian military tools like Iskander ballistic missiles.
In the face of a numerically superior Russian army, the Baltic states have adopted a concept called total defense, in which they “not only rely on professional military defense forces … but [are] also able to use civilian society and the national economy” in times of crisis, Marta Kepe, an analyst at RAND Europe, told the HPR. The Baltics have limited human and financial resources, so total defense allows them to utilize more of those resources for defense purposes if necessary, Kepe noted.
Both Estonia and Lithuania practice conscription, and all three Baltic states have encouraged their citizens to fight against occupation using guerrilla warfare. Latvia recently introduced a secondary school course related to national defense and security issues, while Lithuania published “a handbook of total defense” with “very short but clear guidelines” for people to use in a crisis, Kepe said.
Estonia is a case in point: its military’s General Order No. 1 states that troops will start fighting Russian troops the moment they cross the Estonian border until orders to the contrary. Colonel Riho Uhtegi, head of Estonia’s special forces, told Politico that while the Russians can easily get to Tallinn, the country’s capital, “they will die in Tallinn. And they know this … They will get fire from every corner, at every step.”
NATO will still play an important role in Baltic defense, however. “Regardless of how many people they’re mobilizing, [the Baltic states] are never going to stand a chance against Russia on their own,” Orenstein told the HPR. NATO’s “relatively small-sized symbolic force” in the Baltics serves as a deterrent to Russia, “mak[ing] Russia think twice about invading.”
In the event of a conventional armed attack, Kühn told the HPR that the attacked state “would call for Article V, meaning it would call for the assistance of the other NATO member states” to defend against Russia. Overall, “the Baltic states are reassured by NATO.”
But NATO can still do more to support the Baltic states. Kühn noted that the Baltics “would wish for a stronger American presence” and suggested deploying these forces along border areas in order to “mak[e] sure that no disguised forces, little polite green men as they’re called in Russia, cross the borders into the three Baltic states.”
Cyber Concerns
Russian cyberattacks in 2007 marked a fundamental turning point in the realm of global cyber warfare. In April of that year, Estonia announced plans to move a statue of a Soviet soldier from the center of Tallinn to a military cemetery on the outskirts. Russian media outlets exploded with outrage, especially amidst false reports of the statue’s destruction and the desecration of Soviet graves. Amidst the controversy, a distributed denial of service attack hit many of the country’s websites, taking down government, news, and banking sites. The Estonians suspect that the Russian government orchestrated the attack, although they cannot officially confirm this information.
April 2007 did not mark the end of Russian cyberattacks on the Baltics. “[Russian] state-sponsored actors try continuously and persistently to get access to our systems,” Piret Pernik, an Estonian cybersecurity expert at the International Centre for Defence and Security, told the HPR. The Russians have unsuccessfully tried multiple times to infiltrate and take down the Baltic energy grid through malware and DDoS attacks, and Pernik noted persistent cyberattacks on critical infrastructure like the chemical industry and utilities.
Estonia takes several important measures to defend its cyberspace. Every year, Estonia holds an exercise known as Locked Shields to respond to several cyberattack scenarios, and the country is in the process of creating “data embassies,” or offshore backup centers for Estonian data. A proportion of incoming draftees to the country’s military are termed “cyberconscripts” and trained in information warfare, while a civilian Cyberdefense Unit of the National Defense League serves a cyber militia to either mitigate ongoing cyberattacks or investigate past ones.
The 2018 Cybersecurity Act, passed in May, has also introduced new lines of defense against cyberattacks. First, it required not only reporting of serious cybersecurity incidents, “but also risk analysis, assessment, and contingency plans,” according to Pernik. It also expanded the capabilities of the Estonian Information System Authority in responding to cyberattacks. EISA can install sensors to monitor internet service providers and telecommunications providers for signs of a cyberattack, and “in cases of a real serious cyberattack, they can also suspend functioning of some systems in this network.” EISA also has the power to “hack back,” as Pernik put it. Latvia is also implementing measures to educate their public about cyberattacks, develop cyber contingency plans, and improve response capacities.
Pernik’s assessment of Estonian cybersecurity measures is positive: “[Estonian] resiliency and defenses are very good, and so far, they have kept the Russians out.”
Who’s Got the Power?
Outside of military options, Russia can exert influence in the Baltics by shutting off power or gas supplies or merely threatening to do so. Because the Baltics’ power grids are connected directly to Russia’s, Russia has the power to unilaterally cut off power supplies to the Baltics. Additionally, the Baltics heavily rely on Russian supplies of natural gas, and the massive price increases and disruption to power grids after Russia cut off gas supplies to Ukraine for nonpayment in 2006 and 2009 underscores the dangers of dependence on Russian natural gas.
As a result, the Baltics are turning toward Europe for their power supplies. In June, they reached a deal with the European Union to decouple their grids from Russia and link them to the Continental Synchronous Area through both existing and new cables. Lithuania has already constructed a new liquified natural gas terminal at Klaipeda, while the countries are working to construct new LNG pipelines to Poland and Finland to further reduce dependence on Russian energy supplies and remove a tool from Russia’s geopolitical arsenal.
Polarizing Propaganda
Fake news and disinformation have been part of the Russian hybrid war arsenal in the Baltics ever since their independence from the Soviet Union. A recent exposé explained how the Russian government funded the creation of three sites, all called Baltnews, to push Russian propaganda despite the sites’ nominal independence. Conventional media outlets like Sputnik and Rubalt push Russian propaganda more explicitly, and Russia also funds a television network called the Baltic Media Alliance that spouts the Russian line on current events.
Russian propaganda networks in the Baltics tend to focus on three main narratives. First, they portray the Baltics as fascist states and violators of human rights, even going so far as to foment fascist demonstrations and send in “skinhead agitators” from Russia. Second, they paint a nostalgic picture of the former Soviet times, arguing that the Baltic economy has gone downhill since becoming independent from from the Soviet Union. Third, they characterize the West and NATO negatively, creating narratives of NATO soldiers raping Lithuanian youth and arguing that Baltic independence was really the result of Western scheming against Russia.
The primary goal of this propaganda is polarization. “Russian interference in the U.S. election has been a polarizing factor, but in countries that are much closer to Russia, [Russian disinformation] is an even more polarizing factor,” Orenstein noted. Polarization weakens the mandate of elected officials and foments instability, which in turn increases pro-Russian attitudes. Additionally, Russian propaganda seeks to shift Baltic public opinion away from the West and NATO and back towards Russia.
The Baltics have responded in kind. Lithuania has introduced measures to monitor and analyze news for potential propaganda, while Estonia also launched a Russian-language public broadcasting service and supplemented that with blogs and counter-propaganda sites, exposing Russian propaganda and reiterating the actual truth. Krišciunas also suggested the expansion of American popular culture to further increase Baltic populations’ affinity for the West, while advocating for more resources devoted to measures to analyze and counter Russian propaganda.
Spycraft and Skullduggery
The Baltic states also constantly deal with Russian special operatives and secret agents. “Almost every year, Russian ‘diplomats’ are expelled from Tallinn, Riga, and Vilnius for spying,” Janina Šleivyte notes in her book Russia’s European Agenda and the Baltic States. In 2003, Russian operatives infiltrated the campaign and staff of of Lithuanian politician and later president Rolandas Paksas. In 2008, Estonian officials arrested Herman Simm, the country’s head of security, for feeding NATO secrets to Russia. Most famously, in 2015, the FSB kidnapped Estonian intelligence agent Eston Kohver, who was investigating a smuggling ring, and spirited him across the border to Russia.
The three Baltic states devote ample resources to finding and rooting out Russian spies and are more than happy to “name and shame” Russian spies. For example, the Estonian intelligence service publishes an annual report on counterintelligence issues. This ultimately reduces complacency, Orenstein told the HPR. “If you call out and publicly identify spies, that makes people much more aware that there’s subversion going on.”
The Present and Future Chessboards
Relations between the Baltic states and Russia are like a multi-leveled chess game, with some games played in the public world of diplomacy and rhetoric and others in the clandestine world of spycraft and skullduggery. On the military chessboard, Russia is poised to checkmate the Baltics thanks to its superiority in numbers, but the presence of NATO troops and the continued commitment of the alliance to Article V is so far keeping it at bay. On the other chessboards, the Baltics are holding their own with Russia, despite their much smaller size.
Looking at the bigger picture, the United States and its allies must continue to support NATO in order to maintain the Baltics’ ability to keep Russia at bay. If they do not, much more than the three tiny Baltic states are at risk: an emboldened Russia makes the entire European continent, and even the United States, less safe. In that situation, nobody will be laughing at Saturday Night Live.
Image Credit: Wikimedia Commons/David Iliff