History does not repeat itself, but it often rhymes. Today’s headline from Riga has the melancholic cadence of a poem we have heard before. A stray Ukrainian drone, a border incursion, and the sudden resignation of a Prime Minister: Evika Siliņa has walked the plank, and the Baltic security architecture is left looking like a sandcastle at high tide.
Let us be clear: the drone was Ukrainian, not Russian. That fact alone should give every European strategist a moment of cold reflection. For months, the West has cheerfully supplied Kyiv with long-range weaponry, all the while insisting that escalation is a Russian problem. But escalation, like a stray drone, does not respect the neat lines we draw on maps. It wandered into Latvian airspace, and the political shockwave toppled a government.
Consider the parallels with the late Roman Republic, where frontier governors would fabricate crises to seize power or flee blame. Siliņa’s resignation is not an act of honour; it is an act of cowardice dressed in the toga of responsibility. She could have stayed, could have demanded a NATO Article 4 consultation, could have turned this into a rallying moment. Instead, she fled. And in fleeing, she has told the Kremlin exactly how brittle the Baltic spine remains.
But the deeper rot is intellectual. We have spent a decade debating hybrid warfare, disinformation, and grey-zone tactics. Yet a single drone, a piece of technology that costs less than a used car, can unravel a government. This is the decadence I have warned about: a civilisation so obsessed with process and perception that it cannot handle the blunt reality of a stray munition. We have become like the late Victorians, more concerned with the proper way to fold a napkin than with the storm gathering beyond the garden wall.
What now for Latvia? The opposition will call for snap elections. NATO will issue a bland statement about solidarity. The drone’s manufacturer will probably issue a press release expressing regret. But the damage is done. Every Baltic citizen will now wonder: if a Ukrainian drone can do this, what would a Russian one do? The answer is that a Russian one would not be stray. It would be deliberate. And if a Prime Minister resigns over a stray drone, what happens when the real storm arrives?
The irony is rich. For years, the Baltics have been the West’s moral compass on Russia, warning us that Putin is a revanchist who must be stopped. They were right. But moral clarity must be matched by political resilience. Siliņa’s resignation suggests that resilience is a carefully stage-managed illusion. The moment the script breaks, the actors run for the wings.
We should not be too harsh on Latvia. It is a small country, trapped between a bear and a land of broken promises. But the lesson for the rest of Europe is sobering. If a stray drone can collapse a government, what will a winter without gas do? What will a sudden cyberattack on a power grid do? We have built a house of cards, and a Ukrainian drone has just shown us how easily it all falls down.
In the end, this is a story about trust. Trust in our technology, trust in our alliances, trust in ourselves. That trust was already fragile. Today, it cracked a little more. And as the Latvian Prime Minister packs her desk, she leaves behind a question that no press conference can answer: if we cannot handle the stray, how will we ever handle the deliberate?
The Romans had a saying: 'Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?' Who watches the watchmen? Today, we might ask: who governs the governors when the drones start straying? The answer, it seems, is no one.
