I have to say that, since we became members of the strongest military alliance in the world, it has been very interesting. I will say this is participation in missions abroad. That's where military personnel could get real training—Afghanistan, Iraq, and different other places in the world, Kosovo as well, and Albania, but those were many years ago. However, another thing, of course, is decisions made in the NATO summits in Wales and Warsaw. I think those were very important for us, and now we see the results, six NATO nations being stationed in Latvia.
From the general public's perspective, this is the sense of security, the sense of belonging to the west, to the democratic part of the world. This is hard to explain probably even for ordinary people on the street, but that's how many Latvians—and not only Latvians—who live in Latvia feel. When there was a war in Georgia, not many politicians took notice in the west. But when Russia annexed Crimea and war broke out in the eastern part of Ukraine, many Latvians asked, “What's going to happen if Russia does the same in Latvia?” The older generation had the sense, “Look at Ukraine, especially eastern Ukraine; it has a border with Russia, and so do we”. I had town hall meetings where people were just standing up and saying “Mr. Latkovskis, you were saying we are all fine, but look at the facts. We have a common border. They have a sizable population of Russian speakers. So do we in the eastern part. Those are two things in common.”
Where these people were wrong was that they were comparing apples and oranges. In Latvia, since we regained independence, we chose the course to be again part of the democratic west. We didn't choose some middle path or something wherein, because of the Russian interests in Ukraine, many politicians who were in charge of that country in the 1990s and 2000s chose some middle path, some grey area of security. It's impossible to be secure in a grey area, so Latvia is a NATO member.
Now I'll tell you how I usually explain it to journalists in Latvia and to the general public. You have a security system, which was set up in 1949, and your country was one of the founding fathers of this organization. If something happens, let's say some country attacks a NATO ally, and the NATO countries don't take a decision and don't defend, the whole security system simply collapses. What do you do? Do you choose? If Russia attacks Latvia: “Oh, not so important”. If it attacks Norway: “Maybe a little important”. If it attacks France: “Oh, this is important”. You don't do these things. You don't calculate. Simply, if you don't come and don't defend and don't do something, the whole security system collapses. You only have trust in this because you believe it works. That's how it works.
After that, this explanation was taken on by many other politicians from almost all parties, and it worked for the general public as well. They understood.
What was probably the single most important act was on the part of two countries, actually. When Russia started its actions in Ukraine, two countries immediately made a decision and sent their fighters to the Baltics for air policing missions. Those two countries were the United States of America and Canada.
Everybody knows and remembers the United States of America; rarely, people know and journalists remember that Canada also sent its CF-18s to the Baltics for air policing missions. This is something you should know and that I think you should be proud of. It was important at that time. It was not so much important for Russia, to show that there is a deterrent; it was very important for Latvian people, because what they saw was that in a time of crisis we have friends. Thank you so much.