On the menu today: My journey through NATO’s eastern flank continues in Latvia, where military spending is set at 5 percent of gross domestic product by law, and the government is undergoing some unplanned changes because of a pair of drone incursions. Read on.
Latvia’s Tough Situation
Riga, Latvia — If you compiled a list of the countries that are most likely to get invaded by a hostile force in the next five years, the good news for Latvians is that they wouldn’t be at the top of that list. As mentioned earlier this week, the Russian military has suffered colossal casualties during the war in Ukraine, and it will take time for Moscow to rebuild its military forces to a level sufficient to execute a successful invasion of a neighboring state.
But Latvia would still probably make the top ten list of those countries most at risk, alongside its Baltic neighbors Estonia and Lithuania. And a Latvian official who deals with national security issues speculated that perhaps a year or so after the Ukraine war “stops being a hot war,” Russia could regenerate its capabilities sufficiently to at least threaten an invasion of one or more of the Baltic states.
This Latvian official also observed, “Russians can miscalculate,” and even if NATO’s forces were thoroughly prepared to repel a Russian invasion attempt, the decision-makers in Moscow may not realize it or may not want to believe it. After all, Russia initially believed it would complete its annexation of Ukraine within a matter of months. Deterrence doesn’t just require being prepared to fend off a threat; it requires the other guy to know and believe you’re prepared to fend off his threat.
Earlier this month, Latvian Armed Forces Commander Major General Kaspars Pudāns said in an interview with the German state-funded television network Deutsche Welle, “If I were sitting in the Kremlin, I would say that my window of opportunity is 2027-2029, while NATO is not ready. Since after 2030, this window may close, Russia will become stronger, but the same applies to Europe and NATO.”
At first glance, the Baltic countries’ membership in NATO, and their ability to invoke Article Five of the NATO treaty and trigger a collective response, should be a sufficient deterrent against another round of overt Russian territorial aggression. But just a decade ago, Latvians, their neighbors, and the rest of NATO had good reason to question that assumption.
Back in 2015 and 2016 — after Russia’s occupation of Crimea — the RAND Arroyo Center ran war games simulating an attempted Russian invasion of the Baltics. “The games’ findings are unambiguous: As presently postured, NATO cannot successfully defend the territory of its most exposed members. . . . Across multiple games using a wide range of expert participants in and out of uniform playing both sides, the longest it has taken Russian forces to reach the outskirts of the Estonian and/or Latvian capitals of Tallinn and Riga, respectively, is 60 hours.”
The good news is that a lot has changed in the past decade, for both the alliance and Latvia specifically. Every NATO member is (finally!) spending at least 2 percent of their gross domestic product on defense, eleven are spending at least 2.5 percent, and every member nation except Spain has committed to fulfilling the 5 percent defense spending target by 2035.
Latvia is currently spending 3.74 percent of its GDP on defense, which is actually higher than the U.S. at 3.19 percent. Not only has Latvia pledged to meet the NATO threshold, but the country’s parliament passed a law requiring that national defense spending must be equivalent to at least 5 percent of GDP starting next year.
In 2024, Latvia’s Ministry of Defense finalized a plan to “ensure that active service enlists 31,000 troops, while reserve army of 30 000 will be ready to join them at any time. NAF combat capabilities are provided through professional service units, National Guard or territorial force, state defense service, active and regular army reserve.” Keep in mind, Lativa’s population is 1.83 million. If achieved, the Ministry of Defense plan would put roughly one in every 30 Latvians in uniform in some capacity. Even now, Latvia has one active-duty soldier for every 235 civilians, while the United States has one active-duty soldier per 254 civilians.
A July 2025 report by a Polish think tank noted:
In spring 2024 the Cabinet of Ministers set the country on a path to physically reinforce its eastern frontier. In Daugavpils, a city with its own complex historical links to Russia, a factory began turning out 75 reinforced concrete anti-tank “dragon’s teeth” every day, with a goal of producing 4,500 in total. . . .
The ministry of defense is stockpiling not only dragon’s teeth and roadblocks in the border zone, but also anti-tank “hedgehogs”, barbed wire, concrete blocks and baskets for Hesco bastions. This fortification should become part of the future Baltic defense line. It should have strongholds for the army with closed firing points, as well as obstacles for the enemy, anti-tank ditches, mines and ammunition depots. Michael DiChianna, a fellow at the Institute of World Policy, contextualizes this layered approach: “Defense is now the major advantage. With modern technologies, the battlefield is visible from above all the time. Fortifications help resist and delay.”
How Two Crashed Drones Shook Latvia’s Government
Last month, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov appeared at the Antalya Diplomacy Forum in Turkey and claimed, “The Baltic states and Poland are offering to open their airspace for Ukrainian drones — or those supplied by NATO members — to strike northern Russia.” The Latvian Foreign Affairs Ministry “lodged a categorical protest against the blatantly false statements.”
On May 7, two drones crashed at an empty oil storage facility in Rēzekne, Latvia, about 39 miles from the Latvian-Russian border — as far from Russian territory as Baltimore is from Washington, D.C. Three days later, Ukraine’s foreign minister, Andrii Sybiha, confirmed that “the investigations proved that this was the result of Russian electronic warfare deliberately diverting Ukrainian drones from their targets in Russia.”
This is not the first time that a drone from the Russian-Ukrainian war has crashed in Latvia. But two drones getting that far into Latvia and starting a fire at a (thankfully empty) oil storage facility unnerved the Latvian population and raised questions about why the country’s air defenses didn’t stop either one.
Brigadier General Egils Leščinskis, the deputy chief of operations of the Joint Headquarters of the National Armed Forces, told Latvian media that the country’s weapons were not used against the drones because there was no certainty that civilians or infrastructure would not be harmed.
“Overall, we’re actively working on creating a multi-layered air defense system,” Leščinskis said. “Unfortunately, not everything can be accomplished as quickly as we’d like — many of the items we order and purchase take a year or a year and a half to arrive. The process of further developing the air defense system has begun, but it will take time.”
The next day, the commander of the National Armed Forces, Kaspars Pudāns, said that the drones entered Latvian airspace at different times, and the first drone was not detected by the National Air Force sensors. Later that day, Latvian Prime Minister Evika Siliņa conceded, “Something went wrong. We cannot afford for this situation to continue.”
By Sunday, May 10, the prime minister asked Latvia’s Defense Minister Andris Sprūds for his resignation. And by Thursday, Prime Minister Siliņa said she would resign.
That was fast.
The drone penetration was an embarrassment but not exactly shocking if Leščinskis’s assessment is correct that the air defense system isn’t fully deployed, operational, or effective because of unavoidable supply delays. No air defense system has a 100 percent success rate; the Iron Dome boasts a success rate above 90 percent.
But it is a demonstration of how Russia makes its neighbors live in the gray zone. Latvia and Russia are not in a declared war, but Latvian citizens live with a nonzero chance of a falling drone crashing into their lives, because of Russia launching the full-scale invasion of Ukraine and their electronic air defense countermeasures.
When something like the drone controversy happens a few months before a national election, in a multiparty democracy where no party has more than a quarter of the seats in a unicameral parliament . . . you have a formula for intensifying political divisions.
Latvia’s unicameral parliament, called the Saeima, is scheduled to hold elections in October. Membership of the Saeima is based on proportional representation of political parties, with parties required to reach a 5 percent threshold to gain seats. The current parliamentary majority is a coalition of the center-right New Unity Party, the “Union of Greens and Farmers,” and the Progressives. Even before the PM’s resignation announcement, it had been looking like the governing majority could collapse by the time you read this:
The Progressives do not support the continuation of the current government led by Evika Siliņa (New Unity) and are calling on President Edgars Rinkēvičs to begin consultations on the formation of a new government, Andris Šuvajevs, leader of the Progressives parliamentary faction, said after a meeting with Siliņa on Wednesday.
“The current Prime Minister does not have the nine votes of the Progressives,” Šuvajevs announced after talks with Siliņa.
This turn of events follows the Prime Minister’s demand for the resignation of Defense Minister Andris Sprūds (Progressives) in light of recent drone incidents, announcing that she had already approached Colonel Raivis Melnis for the position, who has agreed to it.
“Evika Siliņa has effectively brought down her own government. The government is essentially incapable of functioning, and that can no longer be changed,” said Šuvajevs, noting that there are two options: Siliņa announces her resignation, or the Saeima votes to bring down the government.
She evidently chose Option A.
Under the Latvian constitution, after resignations, the Latvian president — Edgars Rinkēvičs — would typically pick a leader of the party with the most seats in the Saeima to attempt to form a new coalition. There are currently seven parties represented in the Saeima, with 14 independent members.
ADDENDUM: Over in that other Washington publication, a column going through the redistricting wars, state by state. If Republicans really gain five seats in Texas — a big “if” — the GOP will have eight more districts that are friendlier to them than last cycle. But there’s a reason no one should count any chickens until they hatch:
But there are some big caveats. As Texas Republicans are worrying, just because a person voted for a party last cycle doesn’t mean they’ll vote for the same party this year. The GOP still has plenty of vulnerable incumbents, such as Reps. Michael Lawler in New York and Jen Kiggans in Virginia, as well as open seats in places like Nebraska’s 2nd District and Arizona’s 1st District.
Trump’s job disapproval nationally is around 56 percent. It’s difficult to keep a House majority when the country thinks the president and his party are doing a lousy job. Redistricting can only partially mitigate that; the maneuver cannot overcome it.