Russia less likely to push 'genuinely unpredictable' Trump says Latvian security adviser

We can call it the Trump Effect.

There was a time when Russian President Vladimir Putin was considered the "unpredictable one" on the world stage, according to the national security adviser to Latvia's president.

But Janis Kazocins said those days are over "with the change in leadership in the White House."

Much has been made in American and Canadian political and media circles about U.S. President Donald Trump's seemingly chaotic, sometimes contradictory, outburst-laden approach to foreign policy.

Yet one of the possible effects, according to Kazocins, has been to force the Russians to pause and take stock "now that there is someone in the White House who is genuinely unpredictable."

Born in Britain to Latvian parents, Kazocins spent his career in the British Army before retiring as a brigadier general.

He said Russia has long subscribed to the doctrine of pushing boundaries as far as possible, bluffing one's way, before stopping short of full-scale confrontation.

"If you have Obama, Merkel, Cameron and Hollande on the other side, then you know what the reaction is going to be," Kazocins told CBC News in an interview.

"If you have someone on the other side who is genuinely unpredictable, then onus shifts to you, to make sure you don't go too far."

Upside of erratic?

Trump demonstrated his unpredictability by launching 57 Tomahawk cruise missiles into Syria in retaliation for the use of chemical weapons by the regime of dictator Bashar al-Assad.

"It showed a determination to take decisions, perhaps difficult ones, and use the power the United States has," he said. 

Trump's erratic nature, and the deployment of NATO battalions, including Canadian troops, to defend the Baltic states means the battleground has shifted, he said.

Russia is trying to achieve its objectives without having to use its armed forces.

A bloodless Crimea-style takeover, the kind Russia executed in Ukraine, "cannot be done again because now everybody knows how they behave," said Kazocins.

If Latvia, or the other Baltic states, find Russian special forces infiltrators — the so-called little green men — running around, then "as my boss, the president said: We will kill them because we know what they are."

Kazocins, who is in Ottawa for an official visit, has been advising Latvian President Raimonds Vejonis since Jan. 2016.

Backlash?

He said his country is moving away from the emphasis on "hard security" towards the social and economic fault lines, which he says can be better exploited.

In Latvia that means addressing the economic disparity between the capital of Riga and the surrounding countryside.

One of the most worrisome trends, from his perspective, is the potentially huge impact of the manipulation of social media in the democratic process.

"We don't yet know how far it extends," he said. "Perhaps on Brexit. Perhaps on the U.S. election. Certainly in the case on Catalan independence."

It is an unprecedented situation that is bound to shake up western society and perhaps even rally people.

"I really don't think intelligent, educated, Western populations, like the idea they're being manipulated and I think there will be a backlash," he said.

Latvia will be watching its upcoming parliamentary elections, which must be held within the next year, very carefully for signs of manipulation.

The ideal situation for the Kremlin would be for the election of parliamentarians, and a Latvian government, that has a similar foreign policy outlook to Moscow.

Electronic warfare

Russia conducted a major military exercise on its western border in the late summer.

During that time, Latvia experienced a brief, but major cellular internet outage in the western portion of the country, along the Baltic Sea.

There was also another incident involving the country's 112 emergency telephone hotline, which is equivalent to the 911 system in North America.

"I think it is almost certain that Russia has been investigating ways in which it could, in certain circumstances, use cyber or electronic warfare in the Baltic region to achieve its political goals," said Kazocins.