VZCZCXRO7007
PP RUEHAG RUEHAST RUEHDA RUEHDBU RUEHDF RUEHFL RUEHIK RUEHKW RUEHLA
RUEHLN RUEHLZ RUEHPOD RUEHROV RUEHSR RUEHVK RUEHYG
DE RUEHRA #0579/01 2121438
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
P 311438Z JUL 07
FM AMEMBASSY RIGA
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC PRIORITY 4236
INFO RUEHZL/EUROPEAN POLITICAL COLLECTIVE

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 03 RIGA 000579 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SIPDIS 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: PGOV PINR PREL MARR LG
SUBJECT: Poll: Latvians feel secure; support national defense 
policy, but question international military missions 
 
 
¶1. (SBU) Summary: An annual opinion poll commissioned by the 
Ministry of Defense (MoD) in December 2006/January 2007 confirms the 
tendency shown by previous polls commissioned by the MoD since 2000: 
the majority of Latvian residents consider Latvia a safe country and 
in general support the government's policies in the area of 
security. Contrary to the poll commissioned by the Ministry of 
Foreign Affairs in September 2006, the poll commissioned by the 
Ministry of Defense shows rather small support for participation of 
Latvian soldiers in international peace-keeping missions. The 
discrepancy might be explained by death of two Latvian soldiers in 
Iraq at the time the MoD's poll was carried out. In addition, the 
availability of only excerpts of both polls hampers deeper analysis 
of the contradictory results. Though the poll shows low public 
support for Latvia's involvement in international stability 
operations, there is no evidence that the poll's result has changed 
the generally strong political support for international 
deployments. End of summary. 
 
¶2. (U) At the end of December 2006 and beginning of January 2007, 
the Ministry of Defense commissioned an annual public opinion poll 
of 1,070 people between the ages of 17 - 74 on their views on 
various state security and defense issues. Selected results were 
released in early July.  The survey includes three main areas: the 
security situation in the country; evaluation on the National Armed 
Forces (NAF); and government activities in the security and defense 
fields.  Such surveys by the Ministry of Defense, with some minor 
changes, have been commissioned since 2000, providing grounds for 
data comparison over the years. The MoD's opinion poll reveals that 
in general the majority of respondents see positive developments in 
all areas related to security and defense, however, the poll 
indicates rather small support for participation of Latvian soldiers 
in international stability operations. 
 
 
 
State security 
 
¶3. (U)  The 2006 poll shows that in general Latvian society feels 
secure and that this feeling continues to increase: a vast majority 
(almost 74 percent) believes that in 2006, the security situation in 
the country improved or remained the same. Not only has the number 
of respondents who see positive developments increased but also the 
number of respondents who believe that the security situation has 
worsened has decreased. In 2006, only four percent believed that the 
situation got worse over the past year in comparison to eleven 
percent in 2004 and nine percent in 2005. 
 
¶4. (U) The survey also explored what issues respondents felt were 
the greatest threats to security (respondents could select multiple 
answers to this question).  The results are not surprising: 44 
percent say "economic crisis" is the major threat to state security; 
followed by crime (43 percent); drugs (40 percent); environmental 
crisis (38 percent); terrorism (23 percent); conflicts among ethnic 
groups (21 percent); strikes and social disturbances (11 percent); 
unspecified "threats of war" (eight percent); other unnamed threats 
(one percent). Three point five percent of respondents believe that 
there are no threats at all to Latvia's security. The ranking of 
threats in 2006 are rather identical to the results of previous 
polls, except for the attitude of respondents towards environmental 
issues: in 2006, seven percent more than in 2005 consider 
environmental issues a threat to state security. 
 
¶5. (U) Comment: The rankings are not a surprise.  Economic 
conditions, especially inflation nearing ten percent and a widening 
wealth gap, are topics on everyone's minds.  Furthermore, according 
to official data, the number of crimes and rate of drug use are on 
the rise and affecting more individuals. The increased number of 
respondents who are concerned about environmental crisis most likely 
reflects the priority status of the issue on the EU agenda and 
greater awareness of the problem in Latvia. End comment. 
 
National Armed Forces (NAF). 
 
¶6. (U) The second set of questions concerns the NAF. Also here, the 
poll indicates that, overall, people see positive developments: 66 
percent believe that in 2006 the National Armed Forces made progress 
in its development. 2006 saw the end of conscription and a 
relatively smooth transfer of the NAF to a professional army. 
However, a few individual cases which raised public concern about 
leadership and professionalism in the NAF in 2006 (among them the 
death of two parachutists due to lack of training and co-ordination) 
probably contributed to some negative evaluation. 
 
¶7. (U) Apart from the overall evaluation, the study also explores 
views on specific problems related to the NAF. Forty percent cite 
poor health conditions of young men as the biggest problem. That 
coincides not only with a conclusion of the army recruitment 
committee (in 2006, almost 30 percent of applicants failed physical 
tests) but also general statistical data on poor health conditions 
and short life expectancy of Latvian men. Other problems in the NAF 
perceived by respondents were: lack of arms and equipment (36 
percent); lack of patriotic feelings among members of the military 
 
RIGA 00000579  002 OF 003 
 
 
(36 percent); lack of professionals (31 percent); small defense 
budget (28 percent); hazing incidences (16 percent). In comparison 
to previous polls, the biggest change of views has taken place 
regarding hazing incidences: the respondents who believe that hazing 
incidences are a problem in the NAF have dropped by sixteen percent 
in comparison to 2005. 
 
¶8. (U) While 64 percent of respondents agree that the National Armed 
Forces is a good place to make career, only 49 percent believe that 
it is prestigious to serve as a soldier in the professional army. 
That might be explained by rather low wages and comparatively 
restricted living conditions of soldiers.  It also indicates a trend 
in industrialized countries to view the military as a good career -- 
for someone else. 
 
NAF involvement in international military operations 
 
¶9. (SBU) Interestingly, the published results lacked a general 
question whether the NAF should be involved in international 
peacekeeping operations. However, the Ministry of the Defense 
confirmed to us that the study included such a question and provided 
the results, which were not included in the published figures. 
Surprisingly, only 26 percent of respondents in this poll supported 
involvement of Latvian soldiers in international military operations 
and 58 percent were against. Significantly, the support for 
international military activity among ethnic Latvians is about 33 
percent, but among other ethnic groups (primarily Russians) it is 
only 16 percent. The results contrast with a survey carried out by 
the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (published September 2006), in which 
the question was asked if people opposed Latvian participation in 
international stability operations and only 18 percent of 
respondents said they opposed Latvia's involvement in such missions. 
 
 
¶10. (SBU) Political scientist Nils Muiznieks noted that the data is 
very difficult to compare as the questions on Latvia's involvement 
in peacekeeping operations were phrased differently in each poll, 
with the MOD asking a positive "do you support" and MFA asking the 
negative "do you oppose."  In addition, only some results of both 
polls were revealed, thus making comparison of the responses to 
differently phrased questions even more difficult. However, he noted 
that the death of two soldiers around the time when the MoD's poll 
was conducted might have skewed the result against Latvian 
participation in stability operations. 
 
¶11. (U) The MoD's survey also offered respondents a series of 
arguments (respondents were only allowed to pick one) in favor of 
and against involvement of the NAF in international military 
operations, depending on whether the respondent had a positive or 
negative stance on involvement of the NAF in international 
operations. These results were published. The argument most often 
cited by supporters of involvement in military operations was that 
all NATO member states should participate in peacekeeping operations 
(24 percent). The second most popular argument among supporters (21 
percent) is that international military operations provide a 
possibility to improve soldiers' professionalism and performance. 
The main arguments against participation of Latvian soldiers confirm 
respondents' concern about Latvia's economic situation - the most 
popular argument against participation of the NAF in international 
military operations is "there are other more urgent needs to be 
funded" (27 percent). 
 
Government Policy 
 
¶12. (U) The last set of questions relate to the work of the 
government in security and defense policy. The published study does 
not include a question on whether respondents agree with the amount 
of funding allotted for defense issues (and MOD says no such 
question was asked), however, respondents were asked to prioritize a 
number of defense budget items in the scale from +5 to -5.  The 
highest rankings (+2.7, +2.6 and +2.5 respectively) were given to 
increase of soldiers wages and social insurance; funding for 
military education; and improvement of living conditions. The poll 
also indicates that the government should pay more attention to 
providing information about defense policy. The majority of 
respondents feel there is a lack of information on state security 
and defense policies (64 percent); participation of Latvian soldiers 
in international operations (60 percent); the NAF (59 percent); 
Latvia's NATO membership (58 percent); and on the defense budget (54 
percent). The government has considered the results and responded: 
on June 26, the Cabinet of Ministers allotted nearly USD 40,000 to 
produce a series of TV reports on national defense policy, Latvia's 
NATO membership, and the professional army. 
 
Comment. 
 
¶13. (U) The published MoD's study in general provides majority 
approval for the government's policy in security and defense areas, 
except for participation of Latvian soldiers in international 
peacekeeping operations. Public support for general defense and 
security policies is not surprising since there have not been any 
major security threats, as well as general public do not perceive 
 
RIGA 00000579  003 OF 003 
 
 
impact of developments in defense policy on their daily lives, while 
various economic and social issues have been concern of almost all 
members of society. The small support for Latvian soldiers' presence 
in peacekeeping missions is likely explained by the death of two 
Latvian soldiers in Iraq exactly at the time the poll was carried 
out. The Iraq mission was never supported by more the twenty-five 
percent of respondents in other polls and in a country the size of 
Latvia, two deaths have a big impact.  The fact that this part of 
the poll was not published likely reflects a wish by the government 
to avoid any uncomfortable public discussions on this issue. 
Nevertheless, despite the low public support, no decrease of 
political support for international deployments has been observed 
and we don't foresee any in the short-term so long as there are not 
casualties.  But the Latvian government is going to need to develop 
a more aggressive public campaign to explain how its troops are 
deployed overseas and why it matters. 
 
Bailey