On a cold Tuesday in mid-January, I meet with Col. Jim Smith, a commander on Operation Reassurance, in Riga, the Latvian capital located a mere 200-kilometres west of Russia.
The operation is Canada’s largest foreign military commitment — and also something most Canadians have likely never heard of.
The Canadian command headquarters where we meet are located in the sleepy industrial fringes of Riga. The area is dotted with colourless, Soviet-era factories and blanketed in a heavy fog.
The factories are a reminder that Latvia used to be one of 14 republics that, along with Russia, made up the USSR. The aim of Operation Reassurance is to deter Russia from trying to bring Latvia and other Eastern European states back into its fold.
“Deterrence is achieved through demonstrating our readiness to actually defend over here,” Smith tells me as we sit in a modern, well-lit conference room.
Today, Latvia is merely one of many NATO countries hosting troops to demonstrate this state of military readiness. Multinational NATO battalions have also been stationed in Estonia, Lithuania and Poland since 2016, and in Bulgaria, Hungary, Romania and Slovakia since 2022.
Canada currently has 1,900 Canadian Armed Forces personnel stationed in Latvia. This makes it the single largest contributor to a 3,000-strong brigade that includes troops from 12 other NATO countries.
Smith, who leads Task Force Latvia, says Canada is well-suited to being the framework nation for a small country like Latvia, which has just 1.9 million people and is comparable to New Brunswick in size. As the framework nation, Canada is responsible for coordinating the reinforcement efforts of all contributing NATO allies within the country.
“We’re not as big, financially or population-wise, as some of the other countries in NATO,” Smith said. “But we’re still really a unique country with a lot of things to be proud of.”
Canadian presence
NATO’s efforts to bolster security along its eastern flank date back to 2014. That was the year Russia annexed Crimea, a peninsula on the northern coast of the Black Sea that is internationally recognized as part of Ukraine.
Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 intensified fears within NATO about Russia’s expansionist agenda.
“It’s important to understand that there is the possibility of a security threat, especially in Eastern Europe, especially with what’s been happening to Ukraine right now,” Canadian Maj. Devin Kruk said in an interview the following day at the Ādaži base, a multinational base located on the outskirts of Riga.
Kruk is currently leading both Canadian and non-Canadian troops at the base.
“[I]t’s important for us to be here to show our allies that we are committed, and to show our potential adversaries that it’s not going to be an easy go if they try to do anything.”
Troops deployed on Operation Reassurance — which include infantrymen, intelligence and communications experts and engineers — spend their days conducting joint combat training exercises, gathering intelligence and building infrastructure, such as barracks and tank barns.
There are challenges to bringing troops together from different countries, Smith says.
“ We have different weapons, we have different ammo natures, we have different supply chains,” he said. “ There are all sorts of challenges when you want to bring [allies] together and be able to seamlessly integrate.”
Kruk says that training is essential to ensuring interoperability.
“In the multinational context, we’re all part of the NATO flag, but each nation has different ways of doing things,” he said. “So it’s important for us to go out on exercise and understand how a Spanish infantry platoon does a platoon attack, or how an Italian infantry platoon does a platoon attack, or how a Canadian tank troop conducts any kind of forward movement or rearward movement.”
Looking ahead
Canada is also currently working with Latvia to increase the scale of Operation Reassurance.
“We’ve worked together on a joint plan going forward,” said Smith. “It incorporates infrastructure, it incorporates certain standards that we want to meet together.”
In July 2023, Canada and Latvia signed a joint roadmap to increase the size of Task Force Latvia from a battlegroup, which typically consists of 500 to 800 soldiers, to a brigade, which is made up of three battlegroups. The expectation is that 2,200 Canadians will be part of the brigade by 2026.
In December 2023, Ottawa announced it would allocate $15 million to cover some of the costs of this expansion. The funds have gone toward constructing storage facilities for Canada’s Leopard 2 battle tanks, improving living conditions and building additional accommodations and workspaces at a site near Riga, which serves as the brigade’s headquarters.
Canada’s enhanced commitment to Operation Reassurance means more contact between Latvians and Canadians. Smith says Canada’s military personnel have been well-received by local residents so far.
“We’re integrated in their communities,” he said, noting nearly 100 Canadian military families have relocated to Latvia. “They welcome us with open arms.”
Smith says his soldiers have found their own ways to embrace the experience of deployment.
“ We’ve taken it professionally, and we have a job to do over here, and that’s the main effort,” he said. But he also noted Canadian soldiers have bonded with Latvians over their shared love of ice hockey and the outdoors.
“[T]here’s a lot of soldiers that are learning, absorbing and enjoying the benefits of being in a different country, in a different part of the world, and seeing different aspects of this NATO alliance.”
New pressures
With a new administration in Washington, Russia and Ukraine may face renewed pressure to bring an end to the nearly three-year war.
President Donald Trump has long said he would bring a quick end to the war, but has not been clear about how he would do so. For now, the US is continuing to provide military aid to Ukraine.
Matti Pesu, a senior researcher at the Finland Institute of International Affairs, says the prospect of a peace deal raises critical questions about whether Russia would feel emboldened to turn its attention to the Baltic states.
“In the worst-case scenario, Russia would be able to free up military resources from Ukraine and also rebuild or even expand its military capabilities,” Pesu said. “In reality, the process will likely be less straightforward. Russia will likely have to commit significant forces to the vicinity of Ukraine in the future as well.”
It is also not clear that the Russian economy could sustain the defence spending it would need to fully recuperate or expand its military, Pesu said.
In his view, NATO is well-placed to deter any Russian invasion of the Baltics or other allies — so long as it maintains significant defence forces in the countries bordering Russia.
Operation Reassurance does not have a fixed end date. And Pesu says he expects NATO’s presence across Eastern Europe to continue for the foreseeable future.
“The allies hosting NATO’s Forward Land Forces will likely fight tooth and nail to keep an allied presence on their soil,” said Pesu, referring to the eight Eastern European countries currently hosting NATO troops.
“Scaling down operations would necessitate a significant improvement in the security environment: that is, a much less threatening Russia. Scaling down would likely be associated with broader changes in NATO defence posture and collective defence.
“Both of these look unlikely in the foreseeable future.”
Leave a comment