Senior Course 122 (SC 122) spent 16 and 17 June 2013 in Riga, capital city of Latvia, as part of the Regional Approaches Field Study.
The programme began at the Open-Air Ethnographic Museum, with a formal reception hosted by Mr Jānis Sārts, State Secretary at the Ministry of Defence of the Republic of Latvia.
An interesting series of briefings was then scheduled at the Latvian National Defence Academy (LNDA). Here, Course Members were cordially welcomed by Col Egils Leščinskis, Commander of the Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC) of the National Armed Forces of the Republic of Latvia and Rector of the LNDA.
Mr Jānis Sārts then addressed the group on strategic communication and its implications for the development of the Latvian Armed Forces. A dedicated Q&A period offered a valuable complement on various aspects of this particularly topical subject.
The subject of the following talk was “Security policy: aspects of Latvia’s foreign policy”. This topic was comprehensively covered by Mr Andžejs Viļumsons, Director of the Security Policy Department at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, who examined major current and future areas of interest.
Prof Dr Žaneta Ozoliņa concluded the programme with a useful briefing entitled “Latvia in the European security context”. The speaker is a prominent scholar at the University of Latvia, where she is Head of the Department of Political Science and Director of the Advanced Institute of Social and Political Research. This presentation offered a broad overview of salient regional issues against the backdrop of the European Common Security and Defence Policy. The ensuing Q&A session offered scope to discuss European citizenship procedures and challenges in Latvia, as well as the country’s NATO membership and its attitude to important regional issues.
The next stop on SC 122’s Regional Approaches Field Study will be Sofia, for briefings on Bulgarian security perspectives.
More about the Field Study:
NATO Defense College 
