NATO fighters shot down a foreign drone over Latvia. Latvia says Russian electromagnetic warfare caused the issue. Finland closed airspace and sea areas at the same time. The Baltic region has heightened security concerns.
The drone got shot down by NATO aircraft. Not by Latvia's air force. By NATO's. Latvia needed the alliance to handle a single unmanned aircraft in its own airspace. That's the equivalent of calling your older brother to open a pickle jar.
Latvia blamed Russian electromagnetic warfare for the incident. Electromagnetic warfare. Not a missile. Not a jet. Electromagnetic interference made this drone fly where it shouldn't. Russia allegedly pressed some buttons and scrambled the drone's GPS hard enough that NATO had to scramble jets and fire actual weapons at it. The technological equivalent of making someone walk into a glass door by turning off the lights.
Finland responded by restricting airspace and sea areas. Briefly. They saw one drone get shot down over a neighboring country and decided to ground everything for a bit. That's the geopolitical version of seeing your coworker get fired and immediately updating your resume.
The drone was foreign. That's the official designation. Foreign. Not Russian. Not unidentified. Foreign. NATO shot down a foreign drone over a NATO member state that blamed Russia for electromagnetic warfare but nobody will say the drone was Russian. It's like watching a detective show where everyone knows who did it but the cops keep calling the suspect "a person of interest from out of town."
Retail traders are currently trying to figure out which defense stocks to buy based on this news. They're Googling "electromagnetic warfare ETF" and wondering if Raytheon makes GPS jammers. They'll end up buying shares in a company that manufactures commercial radar detectors for speeders and call it a hedge against World War Three.
Photo by Raimond Klavins on Unsplash
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