War with Russia

It was the ones with brains and initiative who left, Morland thought, those who knew they could use their training and skills to make a success of civvie life. It was either the truly dedicated or the ones who lacked initiative and drive, all too often, who were the ones that stayed. He wondered where that put him.

“Why?” he asked lamely, realizing that he should have known and should have at least tried to talk his sergeant out of it.

“Why? Come on, Sir. This is brilliant out here. But back in barracks… there’s just not the buzz any more. Anyway, the missus has had enough of putting up with an army quarter managed by a bunch of useless civvies, who couldn’t give a stuff about anyone in uniform. And now they’re doing away with what few perks and allowances once made life tolerable. Quit while you’re still ahead is my motto.”

The trouble was he found it hard to disagree with anything Wild had just said. However, just as he realized he had run out of any arguments to stay, he saw the base commander walking up the path toward him. “Tom. You’re wanted in Riga. The Director of the Constitution Protection Bureau, Juris Bērziņš, wants to see you. My car will take you.”

The statement came as a total surprise to Morland, as he had not considered himself important enough to have a one-on-one meeting with the head of the Latvian secret intelligence service. “Of course, Sir,” he replied and signaled to Wild to carry on without him.

As he signed his weapon in at the armory, he wondered whether this might have something to do with the crisis in Ukraine. Certainly, the Special Forces Latvians he was working with were convinced that the Russians were coming for them, sooner or later. The gloomy view in the All Ranks Mess where they ate, and the near single topic of conversation the previous night at dinner, was that this latest Ukraine attack was just a distraction for a more general attack on the Baltics.

Asked for his opinion, Morland had been careful not to insult his hosts by disagreeing outright, but he had counseled against overreacting. After only three weeks in country, he was already very aware that living next to this resurgent and belligerent Russia would induce paranoia in any Western-looking, democratic neighbor; especially one with a deeply discontented Russian-speaking population. But as far as Russia attacking a NATO country was concerned, that was something altogether different.

The received wisdom across the British Army, and repeated by most middle-ranking officers he had spoken to ever since, was that this was the talk of old Cold War warriors, nostalgically harking back to those dark and dangerous days when the enemy was obvious and military budgets and organizations were secure. The world had moved on and was now a very much smaller place. Even Russia had to find a way of living within the current world order, if it were to succeed and grow as a nation state.

But Morland also remembered the ever-cynical Mr. Midgeley and his thought-provoking lessons at school. “Listen, lad,” he would say in his broad Rochdale accent. “What does history continually teach us? That when everyone is convinced one thing is going to happen, you can bet your house and dog that the exact opposite is going to happen. Oh, and never listen to a politician. Not enough of them are historians.”

An hour later he was sitting in an anonymous government office in Riga. Bērziņš, in his early sixties, craggy faced and with a shock of white hair, leaned forward. “Very good of you to drop in, old boy; do have a brew… I get Twinings to keep me supplied with English Breakfast tea.” Bērziņš, the son of Latvian refugees and UK born and raised, spoke perfect English with a crisp Sandhurst accent, the product of his time as a senior officer in the British Army. He had moved to Latvia following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. He was now Director of the Constitution Protection Bureau, Latvia’s counter-espionage and internal security service, and Morland could see he was measuring him as he spoke.