Latvia’s fortress think tank

RIGA, Latvia — For a think tank, StratCom, NATO’s Strategic Communications Center of Excellence, with its piked gate and guardhouse, looks more like a fortress.

During the Soviet era, the institute’s martial-looking headquarters on Kalniciema Street was a Red Army recruitment center. Today, StratCom is on the front lines of the palpably intensifying information war in the Baltic region, as the Kremlin ratchets up its efforts to destabilize the fragile democracies of the former Soviet republics.

As the alternating Latvian and NATO flags outside indicate, the sympathies of StratCom’s 30-strong staff of researchers and analysts lie firmly on the Western side.

Much like its counterpart in Tallinn, the alliance’s center for cyber defense, StratCom draws fire from Sputnik and other Russian propaganda outlets, which accuse it of being a NATO “spy station.” Some Latvians, alarmed by the slow-motion Russian coup they say is taking place, wouldn’t mind if it was.

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When StratCom launched in the winter of 2014, the greatest perceived security threat to the alliance was the rapid spread of the Islamic State’s brand of terrorism. That all changed when Russia sent its “little green men” into Crimea and annexed the region with the help of a sophisticated hybrid warfare campaign several months later.

“There was a feeling that this [strategic communications] was the coming thing, and that it could be Latvia’s way of contributing to NATO,” Antti Sillanpaa, the Finnish head of StratCom’s technical and scientific branch, says.

StratCom’s formal opening event in August 2014, its drab exterior sheathed in a sparkling coat of white paint, was a well-publicized affair. Among those who came to bless the ballyhooed facility were the presidents of Lithuania and Latvia, and U.S. Senator John McCain.

Meanwhile, the roster of NATO members and partners participating in the center — now up to 10, including NATO partner Sweden — has grown, as have its activities. Last year it contributed on-site support to several major NATO multinational exercises.

The center also hosts lectures on the evolving discipline of strategic communications, which can fairly be described as the art and science of weaponizing information and disrupting disinformation. Classes in the secure, corporate-feeling facility, which are open to all NATO personnel, are often packed.

“Numerous Russian-language media, especially in Latvia and Estonia, draw information directly from Russian information agencies and media, much of it false” — Ben Heap, StratCom senior expert 

Like most think tanks, StratCom’s principal activity consists of producing white papers. It also publishes its own academic journal, “Defense Strategic Communications.” The difference is that it does these things inside a fortified compound.

StratCom’s formal remit — “to understand and use state-of-the-art methods that address challenges in the information environment that NATO and NATO countries face” — remains a broad one.

Still, Stratcom’s gung-ho staff admit, their principal focus is the information war — or “information confrontation,” in the center’s preferred, less bellicose phrase — between NATO and Russia. But, they emphasize, they are only observers of that “confrontation,” not participants, as both the external Russian media and the local Russia media would have it.

“As we have revealed some of the tactics the Kremlin is using, we have been associated as a participant in this disinformation campaign,” says Sillanpaa, whose unit specializes in studying social media. “However we do not see our role as such. We are not doing strategic communications. We study it.”

“StratCom’s mission is a broad one,” says StratCom senior expert Ben Heap. “Obviously, taking into account everything that has happened recently in Europe, including Russia’s more increasingly aggressive disinformation campaigns, this part of our analysis and studies has recently gained in importance.” He points to a recent study of a pro-Kremlin trolling in Latvian-language media as a good example of what the center does now.

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Heap concedes that the Baltic states, particularly Estonia and Latvia, are especially vulnerable to the ramped-up Russian information assault because of their large Russian-speaking communities, which make up roughly 30 percent of the population in both countries. “Ethnic tensions involving different minorities, in particular the Russian-speaking populations, constitute a fertile ground for Russian propaganda and disinformation.”

“Numerous Russian-language media, especially in Latvia and Estonia, draw information directly from Russian information agencies and media, much of it false,” he says. The problem is that “relatively weak” national media “do not constitute an adequate counterweight.”

But the Baltics are not as easy to destabilize as some people think, Heap, a retired British army captain who joined StratCom last year, contends. The probability of a Russian military invasion is low, he adds, despite the recent build-up of Russian forces on the Latvian border.

Latvia is particularly susceptible to the new Russian information assault, former Prime Minister Valdis Birkavs says, “because of the weak political and social integration of its society, as well as a consequence of Russia’s implemented information strategy.”

“We are in an asymmetrical situation in all fields of battle with Russia, including and especially the information and media front,” agrees Andis Kudors, executive director of the Center for East European Policy Studies at Riga University.

“The fact is there is a battle going on for the hearts and minds of the people of this city. We must get more involved, or accept the results”— David Holahan, former Marine attaché at the U.S. Embassy in Riga

Latvia’s current center-right coalition government should do more to push back against the Kremlin’s media assault, Kudors says, including shutting down several of the increasingly popular Moscow-based television news and commercial channels.

Otto Ozols, a prominent Latvian journalist, is also alarmed by the inroads the Russian media are making with the general population: “85 percent of television viewers use cable networks and the Kremlin has made sure that there are no packets of programs that do not include Russian channels,” he says. “Every Latvian resident who buys cable TV services is forced to absorb Russian TV in some way.”

Rising support for Harmony, the Russian interest party headed by mayor of Riga Nils Usakovs, is also a source of concern, according to Ozols. The party is now the largest in parliament with nearly a quarter of its seats, as evidenced by recent polls, and has caused a drop in support for pro-Western parties.

Polls show that the nominally social democratic party is on track to do even better in next year’s elections, thanks in part to Latvian voters’ disillusionment with the ruling pro-Western coalition.

If Harmony — which considers NATO “the attacking fist of the West,” in the words of foreign policy spokesperson Sergey Potapkins — comes out on top in the next round of parliamentary elections in 2018, it could plausibly try to alter Latvia’s relationship to the alliance, or even move to withdraw completely.

“The truth of the matter is that StratCom’s days may be numbered,” Ozols says.

David Holahan, the former Marine attaché at the U.S. Embassy in Riga, would not go that far, but he too is worried about Latvia’s vulnerable situation. StratCom, he says, should become more actively involved in countering the Russian information assault.

“The fact is there is a battle going on for the hearts and minds of the people of this city,” says the retired officer, who owns a cigar bar that is popular among StratCom’s staff and Western embassy workers, as well as some Russians. “We must get more involved, or accept the results,” he says.

Latvia should make StratCom’s intelligence capabilities less academic and more aggressive agrees Richard Kols, the vice chairman of the Latvian parliament’s foreign policy committee. Otherwise, he fears, the center risks falling victim to the same information war its staff is tasked with studying.

Gordon F. Sander is a journalist and historian who frequently writes about the Nordic and Baltic regions. He is the author, most recently, of “The Hundred Day Winter War,” about the 1939-40 Soviet-Fenno Winter War.