Canadians in Latvia to keep calm and carry on in face of massive Russian military exercise

By: Murray Brewster, CBC News

The Canadian military is taking a wait-and-see approach to a massive Russian military exercise scheduled to take place on the border of the Baltic states this summer — but the country it's being asked to protect is decidedly more nervous.

Defence officials in the United States said this week that they will pay close attention to the drills, which are expected to involve between 70,000 and 100,000 Russian troops equipped with tanks, armoured vehicles, aircraft and helicopters.

The exercise known as Zapad, or West, occurs every few years and Latvia's ambassador to Canada, Karlis Eihenbaums, says it is always a nerve-rattling time.

"The previous exercise was not very comfortable for us," he said in an interview. "We were always uncomfortable with these exercises because of the size. It's huge."

The fact Russian troops are practising to advance into the West is even more alarming.

"You cannot feel safe," Eihenbaums told CBC News.

Related:
Forces iron out challenges ahead of Latvia deployment
Canadians prepare to face cyberwarriors in Latvia mission
Canadian-led battle group to deploy to Latvia, to deter Russia

The timing is particularly significant for Canadian troops and aircrew.

The Russian exercise will kick off just as the multinational, Canadian-led NATO battle group in Latvia is fully activated, and as a flight of CF-18s resume air-policing missions over the Baltic.

The first of 450 Canadian troops are expected to deploy to their base near Riga, Latvia, next month, and they will be joined over the summer by hundreds of other soldiers from Poland, Italy, Spain, Slovenia and Albania.

Brig.-Gen. Simon Hetherington (centre) is commander of the 3rd Canadian Division which oversaw the training of the the troops deploying to Latvia. (DND\MCpl Melanie Ferguson)

Eihenbaums said the NATO deployment, coming in the face of the Russian exercise, will make for a time of extraordinary tension.

Some of that strain, at least for Western military officials, also involves the expectation that Russia will upgrade its missile defences in Kaliningrad, a sliver of land tucked between Poland and Lithuania. Moscow is thought to be permanently upgrading its nuclear-capable Iskander ballistic missile systems, which are capable of hitting targets hundreds of kilometres away.
'Tripwire' battalions

The Liberal government agreed last summer to lead one of four NATO battalions that are being deployed in eastern Europe as a check against possible Russian expansionism.

The tiny Baltic countries are members of the Western military alliance and asked for the deterrence measures.

The battle groups have been referred to as "tripwires," much to the chagrin of the army, because in the event of a full-scale Russian military action, they would be quickly overwhelmed. In fact, the U.S. think-tank the Rand Corporation estimated in a 2016 report that the Baltic states could be overrun in as little 36 hours.

It is that kind of operation that Russian troops will be practising in September.

A spokesperson for the Department of National Defence, Col. Jay Janzen, said every sovereign nation "has the right to exercise its military forces and Zapad falls into that category."

He pointed out Canada will be conducting its own drill at the base in Wainwright, Alta. But exercise Maple Resolve involves just 7,000 troops.
Is there a threat?

Whether the Canadian military believes there's a threat from the manoeuvres on the Latvian border will depend on how Russian troops conduct themselves, said Janzen.

"If the purpose of the exercise is to prepare their troops, it is not a matter of concern to the Canadian Armed Forces," he said. "If they are close to the border and the intent is to send a message, that would be of concern."

The situation would be far less tense, Eihenbaums said, if Moscow invited NATO, or other international groups, to observe the exercise.

"What we would be happy to see is that our militaries would be able to monitor the situation," he said. "It would make this exercise more transparent, as it should be among neighbours if they are talking about mutual trust."

CAF Working to Iron Out Challenges Ahead of Latvia Deployment

By: Murray Brewster, CBC News 

Some NATO allies are calling it "Noah's Ark."

The description of the Canadian-led battle group being assembled in Latvia this summer is more than just a cheeky reference to the disparate collection of nations that make up the force of 1,500 heavily-armoured troops.

It underlines some of the very real challenges military planners face, including how much intelligence data Canadians can share with their partners on the ground and what restrictions — known as caveats — the other nations will impose on the use of their troops.

The constraints some European NATO members placed on their soldiers during the Afghan war, notably forbidding them from operating in southern provinces where the Taliban were present, were a major source of tension among the allies.

Nations operating alongside Canada in Latvia will also be coming with caveats, some of which have raised eyebrows at alliance headquarters in Brussels, said defence officials, who were only authorized to only speak with the media on background.

They would not be specific about the restrictions, other than to say officials are working through the matter.

The Trudeau government agreed to the open-ended deployment at last summer's NATO summit in Warsaw, where the western military alliance announced it would place four battalion-sized formations in the three Baltic States and eastern Europe to act as deterrent against a resurgent Russia.
Diverse team
Canada will deploy 450 soldiers, including a headquarters team and a company of infantry soldiers driving the army's new (light armoured vehicle) LAV 6 fighting vehicle, a larger more powerful version of the troop carrier used in Afghanistan. They will be joined by: A troop of tanks from Poland; Two companies of mechanized soldiers travelling in armoured vehicles — one each from Spain and Italy; and infantry soldiers from Slovenia, Albania and Latvia.

"We are certainly recognized as taking on a diverse team," said Brig.-Simon Hetherington, commander of the 3rd Canadian Division, which is training the first rotation of Canadians for deployment in a few weeks.

One of the important preoccupations for commanders will be deciding what intelligence can and cannot be shared.

"Nobody is in the Five-Eyes there so we've got to be careful about what we do there in that regard," said Hetherington, referring to the long-standing intelligence-sharing network among Canada, the U.S., Britain, Australia and New Zealand.

It's not your grandfather's Cold War, Canadian and NATO officials insist

What also makes this deployment different is the cyber threat posed by Russia and the expectation that so-called fake news will be used to drive a wedge between the NATO troops and the Latvian population.

To that end, Hetherington says soldiers are being schooled and reminded to be careful what they post online and where they post it.

"We need to educate our soldiers. What do they say on social media? How do they say it? That's a direct link to the cyber threat," he said.
Cyber vs. 'fake news'

Karlis Eihenbaums, Latvia's ambassador to Canada, says public opinion in his country overwhelmingly supports the NATO deployment.

His country has not faced the same kind of cyberattacks as neighbouring Estonia, but has struggled against disinformation campaigns.

A military unit from Canada marches during a 2014 military parade marking Polish Armed Forces Day, in Warsaw, Poland, where Canadian soldiers were taking part in military exercises. Canada is preparing to lead a multinational battle group in Latvia that will include Polish tanks, as part of NATO's deterrence measures against Russia. (Czarek Sokolowski/AP Photo)

"What is good is our Western allies understand the urgency to do something about this," he said.

There are other more pedantic details for the Canadian-led force to consider.

"The language issue: That's always a challenge, particularly at the junior level," Hetherington told CBC News in an interview. "Our Polish isn't that good and I doubt the young (non-commissioned officer) from Poland's English is going to be that great."

Mechanics is another issue: "How do we communicate? We've all got different radio sets, different comms systems, digital and analogue. We have to work through that."
Tripwire battalions

A study by the Rand Corporation, a U.S.-based think-tank, estimated it would take less than 60 hours for Russian troops to overrun Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania in the event of a full-blown crisis.

The NATO battalions have been loosely described as a "tripwire" to guard against any interference similar to what to has unfolded in Ukraine over the last three years.

Troops from the U.S. Army's 173rd Infantry Brigade Combat Team parachute from a Boeing C-17 Globemaster III during a NATO-led exercise in May 2014 that including parachuting, airborne operations and infantry skills. (Kacper Pempel/Reuters)

The sobering scenarios are on the minds of soldiers, particularly as tensions with Moscow remain high in the aftermath of allegations of tampering in the U.S. election.

"We need to be prepared for the worst case," said Hetherington.

"This is about showing the solidarity of our alliance. The willingness of Canada to be prepared to defend one of NATO's allies."

In theory, the battle groups would be expected to hold out until NATO could muster its high-readiness rapid reaction force — something that could take days.

Privately, Latvian officials don't believe help would arrive in time, an assessment Hetherington, as a professional military officer, shares.

"It would be over very quickly," he said.

"Are we a tripwire? I've never liked that term. We are a show of assurance. We are a show of deterrence. We hope that everything, like every other war that's happened out there; that diplomacy and other means of national power are going to be the way we avoid the worst case scenario."

CAF Deployed in Latvia to include ‘Cyber Warriors’

By: Matthew Fisher, The National Post 

Canada is to deploy “cyber warriors” to Latvia this June to defend its military computer networks and the information on them from sustained attacks by Russia, as a Canadian-led NATO battle group begins an open-ended deployment to the small, strategically important Baltic nation.

Canadian and Latvian soldiers in Kadaga, Latvia, during Operation Reassurance in September 2015. (Cpl. Nathan Moulton -DND)

Separately, the Canadian Forces have been preparing the 450 troops bound for Latvia to act as a tripwire to deter Russian aggression to be ready to for a smear campaign orchestrated by the Kremlin to create tensions between them and their Latvian hosts, through the placement of “fake news” about their behaviour and about NATO’s motives in Central Europe.

The moves are part of a little-known plan to rapidly build Canada’s cyber and information warfare capabilities to counter threats, not only from Russia but adversaries such as Islamic State and al-Qaida.

“We definitely have to get it right. We have to go to Latvia with a strong defensive posture,” said Brig.-Gen. Paul Rutherford, commander of the newly created Joint Forces Cyber Component. “First and foremost, we recognize cyber as a domain of warfare.… We are constantly under attack.

“We will educate our troops about vulnerabilities, because Russia is quite adept in the cyber and information warfare domains.”

As well as defending against attempts to hack into military computer networks, troops had to be ready to defend against blatant disinformation in Latvia. This was underscored last month when bogus stories about German troops raping Lithuanian women began circulating on social and mainstream media within two weeks of the arrival of the German-led battle group.

“When you see how quickly it happened with the Germans, that shows us what to expect,” said Lt. Col. Richard Perreault, who recently returned from Latvia. “

Are they going to try? Yes they will. We fully expect such actions by the Russians.”

The Canadian approach in Latvia would be much different than Kandahar, “where we went in with a war mindset,” Perreault said. To counter Russian attempts to shape the narrative with false and deceptive information, “we will communicate facts and the truth,” the colonel said. “We will provide clear and transparent information. If we see inaccurate facts, we will take action.”

The danger posed by cyber attacks was of such crucial significance that the military was creating a new cyber trade specialty, Rutherford said.

“We want to bring people into the trade to become what I call cyber warriors,” the general said. “To retain these experts, we need a career path for the duration of their careers.

“That is what they eat and dream about and we need to do this for them. We want a breadth of cyber operators. We need analysts who can understand. We also need guys who understand the strengths and weaknesses of our systems and cyber intel. We have to invest heavily to ensure from a cyber perspective we can anticipate and bolster our defenses.”

Training, promoting and paying these soldiers enough that they will want to remain in the Forces was a top priority, as was the need to invest in cutting-edge technology for them, Rutherford said.

Like Ukraine, the Baltic states have been particularly susceptible to Russian propaganda and trolls because large Russian minorities there can easily tune in television stations from Moscow. The Lithuanian ambassador to the U.S. has said that “cooked” broadcasts from Russia were designed to turn his countrymen against NATO.

Russia’s cyber assaults first attracted intense attention when the Estonian parliament, banks and media were swamped and disabled in 2007 by massive amounts of electronic spam and malware. More recently, Russia was the sole suspect behind a cyber blitz that tried to shut down Ukraine’s power grid and banking system.

Moscow has also been accused of using cyber attacks to try to interfere in the U.S. presidential election and in impending European elections from Norway to Italy.

The Russian efforts were made plain this week with the revelation — never denied but hitherto unknown — that the grandfather of Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland ran a pro-Nazi publication in Ukraine during the Second World War.

This is part of what Russia’s top general, Valeri Gerasimov, has called “hybrid warfare.” Cyberspace “opens wide asymmetrical possibilities for reducing the fighting potential of the enemy,” Gerasimov said in an article published four years ago.

Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu, who is close to President Vladimir Putin, recently announced that a new military unit designed to conduct “information operations” was being created.

As U.S. forces in Afghanistan discovered, computer networks can be seriously compromised by something as simple as a soldier buying a USB stick outside the base gates for personal use that was infected with a virus.

“That is exactly what I am talking about,” Rutherford said. “From the electronic signature perspective, they must be highly educated.” he said. “They have to know how to use devices such as smart phones or to not bring them with them.”

Trump Presidency increases risk for Canadian Troops headed to Latvia

By: Laura Payton, CTV News 

OTTAWA -- A top Democratic politician says Russian President Vladimir Putin will undoubtedly test U.S. president-elect Donald Trump by moving troops into a former Soviet country - including one where Canadian troops will be operating in 2017.

Howard Dean, former governor of Vermont and former chair of the Democratic National Committee, says Trump talked during the presidential race as if he would undermine the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, and warned Putin will try to test him.

"Who knows how, but I think it'll involve troops, it'll involve Georgia, Moldova, Ukraine or even Latvia," Dean said in an interview with Evan Solomon, host of CTV's Question Period.

That's a significant prediction for Canada, which has 450 Canadian soldiers deploying to Latvia in early 2017 as part of a NATO force. NATO has been beefing up its presence in eastern Europe in response to recent Russian action, and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced last summer that the Canadian Armed Forces will lead a 1,000-person battle group and supply armoured vehicles for the open-ended mission.

Asked whether those soldiers are in a more dangerous situation now, with Putin likely to test to the U.S. president-elect, Dean warned there's danger any time there's uncertainty in foreign policy.

"We don't know what he's going to do... but I think the foreign policy stuff is really scary because a couple of words out of place, you can give people the impression that they can go ahead and do something that you don't want them to do. That is very frightening," Dean said.

'More dangerous'

"Is the world more dangerous or less dangerous now that Donald Trump is the president elect?" Solomon asked.

"It's much more dangerous. Because uncertainty breeds danger and Donald Trump is uncertainty," Dean said.

Trump has praised Putin as a strong leader, downplayed the impact of Russian aggression in Ukraine, and threatened to withhold American support for NATO missions if member countries don't meet promised defence spending targets.

A spokeswoman for Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan didn't answer a question about whether Sajjan agreed with Dean on the potential for increased risk to Canadian soldiers.

"The minister looks forward to a productive working relationship with the new U.S. secretary of defence, whenever he or she is named, just as he enjoys a strong relationship with the current administration and Secretary [Ashton] Carter," Jordan Owens wrote in an email to CTV News.

"Now more than ever Canada remains committed to NATO and to the promises we have made to our NATO allies, and we expect the same principles of ‎solidarity and collective defence will continue to guide NATO into the future."

Trump advisor Steve Bannon 'a Nazi'

Dean said Trump is a complicated person, pointing out he named Republican stalwart Reince Priebus to be chief of staff, but Steve Bannon, CEO of the far-right website Breitbart News, as chief strategist. Dean says Priebus is "a reasonable person," while Bannon is "a Nazi."

"It's a big word and I don't usually use it unless somebody's really anti-Semitic and really misogynist and really anti-Black," Dean said.

"It makes me very nervous. I mean it calls into question Donald Trump's judgement and that's the problem. So we don't know what to expect from Donald Trump," he added.

At the same time, Trump's daughter Ivanka converted to Judaism following her marriage to Jared Kushner, and the couple are raising their children in the Orthodox faith. Dean admits he doesn't understand how Trump "squares the circle," and said minority communities should be fearful.

"When you run a campaign based on hate, which is what he did, you run a terrible risk of somehow liberating people's worst instincts and that's just what's happened," Dean said.

Trudeau affirms commitment to NATO, Latvia mission following Trump victory

By: Lee Berthiaume, Canadian Press 

OTTAWA — Canada is pressing ahead with plans to deploy hundreds of troops as part of a NATO effort to deter Russian aggression in eastern Europe amid concerns about the military alliance's future under Donald Trump.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Monday affirmed Canada's commitment to lead one of four NATO forces in eastern Europe, which will see 450 Canadian troops deploy to Latvia starting next year.

Trudeau said he is "very proud" that Canada is taking a leadership role "as we support the Baltic states and defend the eastern European border against Russia."

His comments came as NATO members scrambled to understand how the Trump administration plans to deal with and support the 67-year-old military alliance.

During the presidential election campaign, Trump repeatedly called NATO obsolete and warned the U.S. would not automatically come to the defence of a member that was attacked.

The real-estate mogul and reality-television star also praised Russian President Vladimir Putin, despite a clampdown on human rights and democracy in Russia and its actions in Ukraine and Syria.

Now that Trump has been elected president, many NATO members have been wringing their hands over what might happen if Russia decided to flex its muscles in eastern Europe in the same way it did in Ukraine.

U.S. President Barack Obama sought to allay those concerns in Washington, D.C., on Monday, as he prepared to visit NATO members Germany and Greece.

"In my conversation with the president-elect, he expressed a great interest in maintaining our core strategic relationships," Obama said.

"There is no weakening of resolve when it comes to America's commitment to maintaining a strong and robust NATO relationship."

Many NATO members are nonetheless waiting for Trump himself to set the record straight on his views over the military alliance.

Trump has said he would first consider whether an ally that is under attack has been pulling its weight in terms of defence spending before deciding whether the U.S. would help.

All NATO members agreed in 2014 to spend two per cent of their gross domestic product (GDP) on defence, but only five meet that target.

Canada is in the bottom third of allies at less than one per cent, the lowest level in decades.

Latvia was at 1.04 per cent last year, but has committed to doubling that figure by 2018.

Asked about the risk to troops in Latvia if U.S. support for NATO softens, Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan said the military is considering all the risks and will make sure the soldiers and their partners are prepared.

The Canadians are to form the core of a 1,000-strong battle group that will include troops from Albania, Italy, Poland and Slovenia.

"This will be a very robust battlegroup that Canada will be leading," Sajjan said.

Latvia's ambassador to Canada downplayed the impact of Trump's election on NATO, saying his country, a former Soviet republic, has lived through "different times and settings" in its history.

"We believe that U.S. institutions and democracy are strong, international commitments clear and there are no obstacles that we could not overcome if necessary," Karlis Eihenbaums said in an email.

Steve Saideman, a NATO expert at Carleton University, said he would like to see Canada come together with Germany and Britain to publicly affirm their support for the alliance and eastern European members.

Such an action, he said, would help counter some of the uncertainty that Trump has injected into the alliance and give Russia pause about taking any action.

But defence analyst David Perry of the Canadian Global Affairs Institute said the reality is that Canada and most of the other NATO members have not been pulling their weight, and that it may be time to start doing so.

"We've all agreed to these commitments of two per cent," he said. "We won't move to two per cent tomorrow, but increasing to 1.2 or 1.3 per cent would be a significant increase."

— with reporting from Alexander Panetta in Washington, D.C.

— Follow @leeberthiaume on Twitter

Lee Berthiaume, The Canadian Press

Can Canada's army do it all: deter Russia and keep the peace?

By: The Canadian Press, CTV News

OTTAWA -- Canada's army has the ability to simultaneously help its NATO allies deter Russia on Europe's eastern border while launching a substantial United Nations peacekeeping mission, top military officials and leading experts say.

The government's decision last week to contribute 450 soldiers, light armoured vehicles and other equipment to Latvia to a 1,000-strong multinational NATO force has raised questions about whether the Canadian Forces can still make good on mounting a major UN peacekeeping mission -- a core foreign policy goal of the Trudeau Liberals.

Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan and Foreign Affairs Stephane Dion insist the answer is yes.

Now, the commander of the army, as well as a leading Canadian peacekeeping expert who is helping to advise the government, are backing up those political assertions.

"We will be able to deliver whatever the government wants us to do," said Lt.-Gen. Marquis Hainse, who turns over command of the army today to Lt.-Gen. Paul Wynnyk.

"There's room to manoeuvre there, to contribute to somewhere else."

Indeed, there's room --but it won't be easy, said Walter Dorn, a professor at the Canadian Forces Staff College in Kingston.

"The NATO commitment puts a strain on the number of forces that are available for UN deployments but I think we can do both," Dorn said.

The benchmark for what's sustainable for a Canadian Forces mission is essentially 3,000 military members deployed abroad at any given time, said Dorn, who cites the fact that a pool of 3,000 was needed for any given rotation to Kandahar in recent years, while a record 3,300 Forces members served in UN peacekeeping missions in the early 1990s.

Canada already has about 400 troops in Ukraine and Poland, and another 800 military personnel in Iraq and Kuwait, drawn mainly from special forces and the air force.

That means Canada could supply up to 1,000 troops to a UN mission and not be stretched too thin, Dorn said.

"Numbers up to 1,000 are sustainable for many years."

Peacekeeping missions, or peace operations as the government now calls them, would likely draw heavily from the regular army.

Hainse said the army is broken into three different brigades of about 5,000 soldiers who rotate through a 36-month training cycle. The training cycle during the Afghanistan war was accelerated to 18 months, he said.

The end of the combat mission in Afghanistan in 2011, as well as budget cuts imposed in more recent years, resulted in the cycle being slowed. While Hainse said he wouldn't want to scale it back any further, he was adamant the army can sustain multiple missions at once.

"There's enough flexibility there to be able to cover a lot," he said.

Sajjan said Wednesday that containing the spread of terrorism across Africa is a consideration as Canada mulls where it will contribute to a UN peacekeeping mission. Sources say Mali, where the French are leading a UN mission that has seen at least 19 peacekeepers killed this year, is one destination that's being carefully considered.