Poll: Latvians feel secure; support national defense

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