FROM RIGA

Latvia’s annual security shindig has gorgeous architecture, a glitzy guest list and a hot agenda. The background drumbeat at this year’s Riga Conference was NATO’s failure to deter Russia’s sub-threshold (please, don’t call them “hybrid”) attacks. Example: Germany’s by-the-book response to the Leipzig drone incident. Norway, by contrast, got plaudits for seizing a Russian merchant ship off Svalbard.

BISC argues for “asymmetric lateral deterrence”: the victim should not have to carry the risk of responding alone, and the answer to a provocation is not tit-for-tat but a mix of tools and tactics applied somewhere the other side was not looking. My explanation is here.

The star guest in Riga was Kyrylo Budanov, until January Ukraine’s top spy and now chief of staff to the president. Revered as the architect of audacious operations deep inside Russia, he has also infuriated allies by repeatedly saying the Baltics are “next” to be attacked. Baseless scaremongering, that Narva or Daugavpils is on the verge of invasion, is the fourth of our seven deadly sins, and all the worse when someone serious says it. I asked him directly to change his tune. “I’ll do better in future,” he said. Watch the exchange here.

OUR TWO WEEKLIES

We read the Kaliningrad press each week. Our latest bulletin is here. Two takeaways: the result of the elections on 18 to 20 September is predictable, but the campaign has been full of surprises. And logistics keep slipping, from delayed flights to thirty-hour border queues. The weekly is part of our Kaliningrad 2050 programme, which asks whether the Kremlin’s trophy exclave will still be part of the Russian Federation by mid-century. Much more in the coming weeks.

Irma Petraitytė-Lukšienė, in Munich, tracks German-language coverage of Baltic security. Simplistic and scaremongering commentary has been a problem for years. Top marks this week to the FAZ, for giving space to the Germany-based Estonian composer Jüri Reinvere. Others did less well.

Both of these happen thanks to the Friedrich Naumann Foundation for Freedom in Vilnius.

THE BALTIC BAROMETER

Our first quarterly report found that the markets have read the region more carefully than the commentariat. Baltic government bonds trade at roughly the same level as France’s. It’s edited by our Christopher Butler Research Fellow, Caspar Schulze. Future editions will look at energy security, defence technology and information resilience.

OVER TO YOU

Whether your interest in the Baltics is personal, professional or both, we want to hear from you. Send us spots and tips, rants and raves. The best ones run in the next dispatch.

BISC’s motto is “Be More Baltic!” Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania see what the rest of NATO doesn’t see. And they do what others don’t do.

Best regards, Edward Lucas and the BISC team

Next dispatch: 28 September.