Perception of Comprehensive State Defence Concept in the Latvian and Russian-Speaking Communities in Latvia

Responding to the changing threat environment, Ministry of Defence of the Republic of Latvia prepared an informative report “On the Implementation of the Comprehensive State Defence System in Latvia” in 2018. The main purpose of this document was to initiate a debate about this security concept within Latvia at all levels. One of the cornerstones of the comprehensive state defence concept is whole-of-society involvement in the defence of a country. Latvia’s ethnic structure (with around 37 % of its population using the Russian language at home) and information environment (with significant consumption of Russia’s internal media content) is setting specific circumstances for the implementation of comprehensive state defence in Latvia due to the polarization of views among the Latvian and Russian-speaking communities in Latvia in regards to certain issues. This paper addresses the question of how the idea of the comprehensive state defence is being perceived within those two language groups in Latvia. The study specifically intends to outline the views of Latvian society in the psychological dimension of a comprehensive state defence concept – what are the motivations and obstacles for the will to defend one’s country? The theoretical part of the paper conceptualizes psychological defence as an element of comprehensive state defence. The empirical part is based on a qualitative research design and intends to conduct 24 in-depth interviews in Latvian town Liepaja which has a diverse ethnic structure with around 58 % of its inhabitants being Latvians, but the rest – various ethnic minorities. The age group of the respondents is limited to 18-55, which is the permissible age for the voluntary service in the National Guard of the Republic of Latvia. Half of the respondents are using the Latvian language at home, and a half – the Russian language. The interviews will be conducted from November 2018 till February 2019.