Goodbye, Riga
About the author: Sally Egan ’22 is an FSI Global Policy Intern at the NATO Strategic Communications Centre of Excellence in Riga, Latvia.
I just arrived back to the US after my nine week stay in Riga and my final three weeks sadly felt like the shortest by far. At work, I got to help out on a paper on deepfakes by finding some of the most convincing examples on the internet and again found myself both in fear and awe of how far technology has advanced. While deepfake videos of US politicians have thus far been obviously fake, imagine what will happen when enemies can create realistic-looking videos of the president declaring war? Or how the 2020 election outcome could be changed by a video being circulated, even just for 15 minutes, of one candidate making an outlandishly racist or controversial statement? Deepfakes may just be fakes for now, but we could be headed down a dangerous path.
In brighter work related news, I got to witness the flag raising ceremony of the Slovakian flag in honor of the country officially joining the Centre. This featured ambassadors and military officials from many of the Centre’s member countries, all gathered to celebrate the new addition. Notably missing from the flags raised is the United States, which still doesn’t officially send citizens or military members to work at the Centre. After the ceremony, I got to talk to several of my coworkers who I hadn’t gotten to know very well, and I had extremely engaging conversations with them, making me regret not talking to them earlier in my summer.
My final travel experiences included trips to Zurich, Nice, and Copenhagen, all of which were incredible cities, but I missed Riga. By the end of my summer, I’d started taking the 20 minute train ride to Jurmala, the beach town, almost daily, and got to catch some amazing sunsets. Those trips were some of my favorite memories of the summer, and made me realize that even if I hadn’t traveled around Europe as much as I had, my summer still would have been amazing because Latvia itself is so rich with culture and activities. I miss Riga already and cannot wait to hopefully go back in the future.
