A View from Tallinn

In the second half of the first decade of this century, I had the chance to work with two Estonian Officers, one a Major and the other a Colonel. The Major was a talkative and entertaining man who had some great stories about being a conscript at the end of the Soviet Union. The Colonel started his career as a Soviet Junior Officer - and a very serious man. His Russian was better than his English, and though he was a nice man and great professional, he was not a chatty person about anything prior to 1991. 

In Afghanistan, I kept an eye on the exceptional work the Estonians did in RC(S), and before I moved back to the USA at the end of the decade I had a chance to visit Tallinn ... and that set the hook for me. Well, that and their tax policy.

In any event, the more I learned about Estonia and their history, the more they became one of my go-to countries. When I saw their MOD earlier this month published Russia's War in Ukraine: Myths and Lessons, I knew it had to be good.

Few have a better national understanding of Russia than the Estonians, and it shows;

Most of Russia’s attention is currently focused on its ruthless war in Ukraine, but Putin has not lost sight of the bigger objectives. In fact, in Russia’s view, success in Ukraine serves as a major stepping stone for reaching further goals.

Russia’s long-term strategic aims remain unchanged: to dissolve the rules-based world order. Putin has written and talked about this for the past 15 years, and Russia’s actions have brutally proved it. Re-establishing spheres of influence in Eastern Europe and recreating buffer zones are the key steps in turning the current international order around for Russia. This is the most important reason why Russian tanks rolled over the Ukrainian border on February 24, 2022, and why similar scenarios have unfolded

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Putin and his policies enjoy widespread support in Russia, which has only strengthened during the war in Ukraine. 

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Should Russia manage to gain any territory as a result of this war – either de iure at a negotiationtab le or de facto by freezing the situation in its current state, keeping the occupied areas under its authority for a longer time – it will have essentially moved closer to its goal. The Kremlin will have demonstrated that altering national borders with military force is feasible and the West and its rules-based world order can be weakened. 

Hence, as long as the territorial integrity of Ukraine has not been fully restored, it is the rules-based order of the West that is facing a strategic failure. It may have come at a higher cost than expected, but Russia is still on track towards its strategic aims. Historically, political concessions are only a fast track to another “special military operation”, possibly against Allied countries. 

If it works, why stop?

If you are new here, you can go back to 2014 to see that I have been pro-Ukraine for a long time. I don't hide that. You can go just as far back to see that I am not a Russia-hater either. 

I also have no illusions about what a precarious time we are in and the dangers that are very real with the conflict in Ukraine. I also suffer no false belief that you can choose your time or preferred history. We are right to help give the Ukrainians what they need to fight for their independence and territorial integrity. We would not have achieved ours without outside assistance either. 

Is Ukraine a perfect republic? No. It is a republic at war. Our republic was not perfect either as it fought to stand on its own.

Anyway, there is no positive gain for the USA or its European allies - or anyone really - if Russia continues to gain territory through military means. She is in the middle of demographic collapse in any event. The odds of her maintaining her borders over the next 50-yrs are small. There simply will not be enough "Russians" to defend Russia.

There will be more war over land - best to have it contained in a smaller mass of the rump Russian Empire with fewer ethnic groups clawing for their place.

Read the Estonian report in full if you have a chance. Well worth it.

Could it all go south and get worse? Sure can.

Will it all go south and get worse if the West were to leave Ukraine to its fate? 

Unquestionably. 

Regardless of what cards come out of the deck, it is better for Ukrainians to fight for Ukrainian independence east of the Dnieper, than for an American-Polish force to try to hold the line at the Vistula long enough for a German-British-Franco led force to set a second line at the Oder.

Averting your eyes from what Russia decided to do west of the Azov since 2014 will not make it go away - however inconvenient it is to anyone's pet theory.

Keep in mind, that is from the guy who over a dozen years ago wanted almost everyone to come home from Europe.

I still want that - but facts on the ground changed. We will have to wait awhile longer.

The Baltic Nations are Subject Matter Experts Here, we Should Listen

I always recommend that if people even have a remote opportunity, they should visit the Baltic Republics.

When there, take time to visit their museums. I especially recommend Vabamu Museum of Occupations and Freedom in Tallinn, Estonia.

These are small nations from Estonia's 1.3 million, Latvia's 1.8 million, to Lithuania's 2.8 million. These little ethnostates each have a unique language, culture, and have survived as a people since pre-history. They are survivors who have not had many years to be masters of their own fate.

The fall of the Soviet Union gave them their latest chance, and they've made a good run of it. They, more than most, know Russia - indeed, all three have significant Russian minorities in their nations who decided to throw their lot in with their Baltic neighbors after the fall of the Soviet Union.

Though they are small, when they speak about Russia, larger nations should listen. Their larger neighbor, Poland with 38 million souls, also has a long and brutal history with the Russians. All four nations will be the first to feel the results of making the wrong decisions towards their big neighbor to the east. A no kidding existential threat. They are also NATO allies, so their threat is in a very real way our threat.

They cannot afford vanity-filled feel-good theories.

Since February, the Baltics and Poland have repeatedly called for the provision of more and faster military assistance, including more powerful offensive weapons, only to be rebuffed by the United States and Western European allies who wanted to make clear that they were not in a direct conflict with Russia.

Slowly, that’s started to change, after Putin proved his wary neighbors right — repeatedly.

“Estonia knows the face of Russian occupation firsthand,” Kallas added. “We know that peace under occupation doesn’t mean the end of atrocities but more of them.”

Baltic leaders have long argued that Western sanctions adopted in 2014 after Putin illegally annexed Crimea showed the West’s lack of resolve in confronting the Russian president over his land grab. European leaders seemed to think the Baltics were so traumatized by Soviet occupation that they could not be objective.

“Jokingly, you know, we call this ‘West-splaining,’” Lithuanian Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis said. The West’s message, he said, was that “after 50 years of occupation, it’s understandable that you would have trust issues with a country that occupied you.”

“For us in the Baltics, it all boils down to this notion of appeasement: that basically we can appease Russia,” Landsbergis continued. “For us, it was always very clear, black and white. If a country is eager to cross another country’s border, they’re an aggressor and they will do that again, if they’re not stopped. And they have not been stopped.”

For free people to remain free - for liberal democratic systems to remain so - there must be military strength. Unfree and autocratic nations respect nothing more than power. You cannot maintain and built peace in their presence without it.

On a broader context specifically towards China, Rep. Mike Gallagher's (R-WI) speech this AM at Heritage drives this point home - hard power matters; overt hard power.

It may be cliché but it is true; the more you prepare for war, the less likely it will occur - but if it does - then you have the capability to win, vice being rolled over and your nation's future subject to the whims of another.

How Do You Work With the Russians at the Negotiating Table and Post-Conflict?

While there is a lot more fighting left to be done in Ukraine, there is one safe assumption regardless of what happens; we will have to learn to live with Russia as she is.

Russian victory in Ukraine runs the spectrum from unconditional surrender of Ukraine to a negotiated settlement that lets Russia retain Crimea and the Donbas. 

One may define a Ukrainian victory on an extreme edge with Russia retaining only Crimea over to being expelled entirely back to pre-2014 boundaries. The longer the war goes on, the less the Ukrainians will find the Crimea option acceptable, and we may already be past that point.

If you think the war will be the end of the Russian desires in her near-abroad, then you have not studied enough Russian history.

Russia will always be Russia. All you can do is to realistically accept that and adjust accordingly. 

In the post-Cold War era there were well meaning but wrong people who thought Russia was just a Western nation with a rough childhood.

Do you remember 2003’s “Spinning Boris” loosely based on the American political consultants rescuing Boris Yeltsin in the 1996 election in Russia? You can watch, I believe, the whole movie here, but just get a little flavor of a shirtless Goldbloom;

We can call that the high/low-water mark of post-Cold War arrogance to Russia that carried on until the middle of the last decade when the balance of people realized with the invasion of Crimea and eastern Ukraine that the doves may not have it quite right. 

Up until the invasion of Ukraine this year, there was still hope that somehow Russia could be contained as a slightly dangerous but otherwise manageable hydrocarbon extraction territory.

A lot of those same people (Department of State and the Joint Staff, I’m looking at you) quickly moved as the invasion was on the way to, “Russia is unstoppable” and tried to convince the Ukrainian government that their best bet was to retreat to Lviv but probably best to leave the country while they had the chance. 

Of course, President Zelenskyy used that as an opportunity in February to deliver one of his best lines to President Biden and the world’s Smartest People in the Room™;

“I need ammunition, not a ride!”

So, my preference here is to not listen too much to what is coming out of DC and Brussels. They have been too wrong for too long. I prefer to listen to those who have generations deep understanding of the Russians; the Central Europeans and the Baltic Republics. They will best inform us of how we should position ourselves relative to Russia.

What is the informed opinion, as much as one can be found? 

Regulars here know my affection for Estonia and the Estonian people. As such, let’s check in with their superb Prime Minister Kaja Kallas;

I warned about premature calls for a ceasefire and peace. We cannot give anything to the aggressor that it didn’t have before – or the aggression will sooner or later return. No sign Russia has changed its calculus. I don't believe in goodwill by an outright aggressor and a cold-blooded war criminal.

We must avoid a bad peace. A badly negotiated peace for Ukraine would mean a bad peace for us all. We need to focus on pushing back the aggressor and drying up his war machine. 

What Ukraine needs today are weapons to fight back the aggressor and liberate its territories. We need to help Ukraine win. And we need to make a leap forward in our own defence.

What is victory? This is solely up to Ukraine to define. But we must help them to reach the best position for any negotiations with the aggressor.

The Russian threat will not go away tomorrow. We mustn't get tired. After all, Ukrainians are not tired.

This is sound. I think I will adopt this as the Salamander Position.

Communism Kills; Estonia Remembers

Few things disgust me more than American liberals' popular front with the hard left. There can be no justification, no excuse, no desire for power great enough to allow those who outright supported or made common cause with communists. The only former communists who should be allowed in proper company are those who have publicly renounced their former associations and are actively - in word and deed - opposing them.

Communists are in the same fetid bucket as Nazis and should be treated with equal contempt. History is the collective memory. This is especially true for those who know what socialism with communist members leads to. My small but plucky friends the Estonians are some of the best at this.   

BZ to the Estonians;

The Estonian Institute of Historical Memory has launched a portal that provides information on the history of communist regimes and their crimes; the portal is published in Estonian, English and Russian. The aim of the portal, called Communist Crimes, is to deepen the understanding of the history of communist regimes on an international level and to hinder the activities of “red terror” deniers, the institute said in a statement. “The portal is unique as it consolidates the communist experience of 45 modern countries into a single database. The portal is continually updated with fresh material,” the institute said. Giving a voice to millions of victims and their loved ones “According to various estimates, approximately 90 million people around the world have perished due to communist experiments in the 20th century,” Sergei Metlev, the institute’s spokesperson, said. 

“Throughout history, the disciples of this ideology have adorned themselves with pleasant-sounding slogans about a happy future, while destroying entire nations and social groups as well as depriving their citizens of basic human rights in order to reach the leaders’ communist utopia.”

Is that clear enough? If you ever find yourself in wonderful Estonia, Please give yourself at least two days in Tallinn. Just a beautiful city with great people. Make sure while you visit Vabamu Museum of Occupations and Freedom. I took the long tour with the wife and kids a decade ago. Our guide was deported twice; once as a young kid after WWII and again in the late 1980s.

Baltic Security with Dr. Sebastian Bruns - on Midrats

From Finland to Denmark, Sweden to Poland - from small Latvia to the Continental power of Germany - the return of Russia has brought a renewed focus the last half decade to the Baltic.

Not just a SLOC, there are important economic and cultural ties that predate written history that continue to be important today.

Our guest for the full hour in a wide ranging discussion will be Dr. Sebastian Bruns.

Sebastian heads the Center for Maritime Strategy & Security (CMSS) at the Institute for Security Policy, University of Kiel (ISPK). He is the author/editor of six books, including "Routledge Handbook of Naval Strategy and Security" (edited with Joachim Krause, London 2016), and his latest, "US Naval Strategy and National Security. The Evolution of American Maritime Power" (London, 2018).

You can listen to the show at this link or below, but remember, if you don't already, subscribe to the podcast at Spreaker or any of the other podcast aggregators.

If you use iTunes, you can add Midrats to your podcast list simply by clicking the iTunes button at the main showpage - or you can just click here.

Eastern European NATO vs. Russia - the Numbers

As we saw with the rapid fall of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War, history can change on a dime with little warning.

Russia's latest row with Ukraine is a good reason to tilt the prism we look at thing through and ponder a few items.

No one knows the Russians better than the Eastern Europeans who were once part of the Soviet Block.

When they rapidly moved away from Communism and joined NATO, they rightfully had a unique challenge in building sustainable economies and representative governments in line with the Western European standard +/-.

They all minimized what, under the protection of NATO and the supine wreckage of Russia to the east, was a lower priority - military spending.

The end of the 2nd decade of the 21st Century is not the 1990s and the last few years have seen a return to historical norms - the Russian bear looming to the east.

Of note, to a nation, all the former Warsaw Pact and Soviet Republics now in NATO have significantly increased military spending since 2014 when it was at its lowest. They skimped too much in the face of a growing Russia and are playing catch-up as best they can. Is it fast enough? TBD.

Hopefully, apart from internal realization of their shortcomings and pressure from the alliance partners, investment in defense in Eastern Europe will continue. Russians respect power more than anything, and a strong Eastern Front of NATO is best for all. 

I also hope there is something else driving this; a realization that NATO is not a guarantee. Many are now taking seriously what I have been warning my European friends for two decades; the USA is one election away from leaving Europe to its own devices (see the Norwegian series, Occupied - it ain't just me who sees this, and it pre-dates Trump).

What are those nations on the front lines against Russia doing for their own security? What alone, or in some collective, what can they put against the power of Russia?  

People and nations will show you what they think is important based on what they spend their money one. 

Last night I put a few numbers together.

There is so much potential here even without any help further west. Their population is not quite Russia, but it is their economic power that is the key.

Of course the weakest part of this is their lack of unified command - something they have in NATO - but with perhaps the Visegrad as the anchor - why not have some military structure in place like most of Western European NATO have with the EU military structure? Not a counter to NATO, but a backup - just like in hushed voices, some on the EU military staff will tell you. 

It would be a staff in being, waiting for a reason to scale up.

First things first though. The great advantage Eastern European NATO has against the Russians - especially Poland and the Czech Republic, is the strength of their GDP/person. They have strong economies. If they are smart, even small increases in military spending can buy quality kit and training - quickly closing the gap with Russia.

A strong Eastern Europe, economically, militarily and rule of law, would be the best guarantor of containing Russia. A promising side effect, by example and close ties, a rising Eastern Europe will help their neighbors, Ukraine and Moldova, start to improve as well. 

Eastern Europe does not have to think that Germany, France, Britain, or the USA are the only things keeping Russia away - if they invest and think - they can do most of it all themselves.

With strong backing to the west, even more. Remember, Eastern Europe has no threat from the west while Russia has much to concern her to her east. If Russia wanted to move west, she could not bring her full force to that effort.

Eastern Europe however can put their full force facing east.

Ponder 3-4 moves ahead of where we are at the close of 2018. 

Plague, 30-yrs War ... and Post-Modernism: Meet the Hard Math of Demographics

Depopulation and demographic collapse are not unknown concepts, disease and war have brought both on a regular basis to human civilization. Unless you are Mayan, Khmer, or other star-crossed civilizations, complete collapse is rare. What we are seeing now from Japan to China to Europe - especially former Communist Europe - is different. This is by peaceful choice.

People have simply decided not to have children.

Over at Bloomberg, Leonid Ragozin has a great write-up about what happened to the Baltic Republics since the fall of the Soviet Union. As is my wont, let's start with a graph.

This graph is almost standard throughout the former Soviet Union. The non-Muslim parts especially responded to economic and social chaos by doing two things; 1) Stop having families, 2) Emigration.

Several factors are contributing to the depopulation of Eastern Europe, and Latvia has all of them: low income, compared with more developed EU nations; insufficient growth; and strong anti-immigrant sentiment. The average annual take-home pay among all EU nations was 24,183 euros ($29,834) in 2015, according to Eurostat, while in Latvia it was only 6,814 euros ($8,406).

The young and educated are disappearing in the greatest numbers, shrinking the amount of working adults who can fund benefits for pensioners. Latvian demographer Mihails Hazans said that, as of 2014, one in three ethnic Latvians aged 25 to 34—and a quarter of all Latvians with higher education—lived abroad. In Moldova, that figure is more than 20 percent. In Ukraine—which other Eastern European nations look to for migrant labor—the state employment service said 11 percent of the population lives abroad.
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With fewer young Latvians staying and getting married, buying houses or starting families, the school system is slowly shrinking. The population is skewing older. Classrooms give way to day rooms.

But Lakse stayed. He went on to college and is now pursuing a legal degree at the University of Daugavpils, Latvia’s second-largest city, which has a population of 86,000. Even for those who stay, though, the pull of the west remains. When students in his class were asked recently whether they were going to stay in Latvia after graduation, almost half said no.

Economics can take time, and in an international environment where educated and motivated people can easily move about, emigration will be an issue. The key is to build a nation your people don't want to leave.

If simple numbers are the issue, as this is Bloomberg and Leonid is Leonid, there is a paper thin discussion of the joys of an immigration fix.

Nine out of 10 countries with the lowest acceptance rate of immigrants are former members of the Eastern bloc. Of these, the three Baltic nations had been previously forced to accept Russian-speaking migrants. In Latvia, the issue is so controversial that in 2015, when the EU insisted it accept just a few hundred Syrian refugees, nationalists initially threatened to withdraw from the government. That same year, Latvia came in second to last in the Migrant Integration Policy Index, which ranks 38 democracies according to the quality of immigration policies. Only Turkey did worse. Latvia was fourth from the bottom in Gallup’s 2017 Migrant Acceptance Score list, which ranks countries in order of their populations’ attitudes to immigrants.

Anti-immigrant sentiment in Latvia is driven, in part, by the National Alliance party, one of three in Latvia’s governing coalition. Speaking in Parliament earlier this year, party official Janis Dombrava quoted polling agency Eurobarometer as showing that 86 percent of Latvians believe immigrants make no contribution to the state.

“Latvia must either completely abandon or minimize the number of migrants who come from third-world countries,” Dombrava said. In October, Prime Minister Maris Kucinskis rejected an EU plan to accommodate an additional 50,000 refugees from the Middle East and Africa. He also defended Poland, which refused to meet the EU-imposed minimum number of refugees it was obliged to accept.

Hazans, the Latvian demographer, has been researching the nation’s slow-motion implosion. Low wages, poor career prospects and poorer working conditions, he said, are the top reasons. He also warned of a parallel political cycle to match the economic one: Since the young leave and the old stay, the electorate gets more conservative, he said, further exacerbating anti-immigrant leanings.

Where can anyone find an example where mass immigration from the Middle East or Africa has been a net-positive to civil society in Europe? Where have any of these large masses produced a boom of per-capita income? What net positive attribute to a nation in 2040 will a critical mass of unemployable, unassimilable, ethnically, religiously, and linguistically people in an already existing ethno-state (Latvians are a distinct ethnic group as are Estonians, Finns, etc) have? 

Go ahead, I'll wait.

This isn't going to happen.

Let pause a moment and wonder if there might be a positive here. By chance, could the Baltic republics be bumping in to avoiding a rising future problem? Again, over to Bloomberg;

Meanwhile, some in the tech industry believe that as machine learning and other technologies continue to replace human labor, basic income will be the only way to guarantee large portions of the human race a decent standard of living.

No one argues this point; the future economic system in the developed world will need fewer people, not more. Machines will take many jobs that require low skills. There will be a higher standard of living on average, but jobs will be scarce. It will be a challenge to find jobs for the educated, the low-skilled? Nope.

Waves of immigrants from Muslim nations and Sub-Saharan Africa are not of skilled and educated people. In the modern economies of Europe, there is no place for them to prosper.

As populations shrink, they will eventually find their level as moods and norms change, as they do. Will they be 30% lower? 50% lower? Who knows, but it will level in the next few decades. What we do know is that there won't be a need more people to take what few low skill jobs there will be.

The best thing for these nations to do - if they wish to remain in peace this century - is to build a high-tech, highly educated people among those kids they do have.

The Estonian View of ZAPAD

What was Russia up to this year with their large-scale ZAPAD exercise on NATO's borders on the Baltic?

It is one thing to ponder that from the other side of the Atlantic, imagine it was taking place just a car commute away.

Worth your time to read it all, but digest these nuggets from Estonia's Postimees' Oliver Kund;

The flagship of the Northern Fleet, battlecruiser Pyotr Velikiy, made the news in late July when it was scheduled to appear in the St. Petersburg naval parade. Few know that the 252-meter ship partook in a military drill in the Baltic Sea on its way back, even though a ship of its size is not meant to be deployed in such narrow waters.

Landings closest to Estonia took place on the Gulf of Finland islands of Suursaar, Lavassaar, and Tütarsaar the latter of which lies fewer than 60 kilometers from the Estonian coast. The scope of activities in the Baltic Sea would have been even bigger had stormy weather not caused some of the exercises to be canceled. There was no such problem in the Arctic, where the Russian navy rehearsed sinking enemy frigates and tactical landings.

What happened on the other side of the Estonian land boundary? The main focal points were the Luga and Strugi Krasnye polygons the closest of which was once again some 60 kilometers from Estonia.

“The entire Western Military District was put on battle alert on September 14. All general staffs moved out; even the district headquarters, headed by General [Andrei] Kartapolov, was moved out of St. Petersburg,” former commander of the Defense Forces, retired general Ants Laaneots said.

Three out of four airborne divisions participated in drills in Strugi Krasnye. While modernized T72 tanks were sent to Belarus, equipment closer to the Estonian border included T90 main battle tanks and the brand new armored fighting vehicle BMPT. No land, air, or naval border violations were established by Estonia.

A lot of emphasis was placed on electronic warfare at this year’s Zapad. Russia is among the leading forces in the world when it comes to disrupting enemy communications as jammers at its disposal range from those aimed against individual squads to major transmitters that can cover hundreds of kilometers.

Disruptions to Latvia’s cell phone network on August 30 and emergency call service on September 13 were probably Russian tests. Mobile communications were disrupted using a powerful network jammer in Kaliningrad aimed at Gotland in Sweden and Aland in Finland.

“Our allies’ weakness lies in their dependency on long-range communications. Major countries need to keep in touch with the homeland when at war. The Russians realize that a corresponding strike would give them an advantage,” a Postimees source explained.

Zapad also offered new and surprising elements. For example, nuclear forces were involved in very early stages of the drills. If during Zapad 2009, Russia simulated a nuclear strike against Poland, and a similar flight of strategic bombers took place near Stockholm four years later, the nuclear exercise concentrated on the Baltic region this time.

Secondly, the exercise largely concentrated on the far north where additional forces were deployed from several other military districts.

Norwegian counter intelligence said in early October that Russia used strong electronic jammers on the Kola Peninsula. They caused SAS and Wideroe passenger aircraft to lose GPS signal climbing beyond 2,000 feet over a week.

It is a busy world out there. Pay attention.

The Wee and Deadly Hedgehog; A Nation of Riflemen

If you are a small and distinct ethnic group that happens to have its own nation in 2016, you only got there by having a certain personality and rich understanding of your own history. For that and many and many other reasons, I have always liked the Estonians.

After the fall of the Soviet Union, they more than any other Baltic republic seemed to have a realist view of their Russian neighbors, and their own very real ties to the West.

The Estonians fought with us relatively caveat free in Afghanistan, and always invested in their defense stronger than their neighbors as a percentage of GDP. As Russia has grown in strength and belligerence, Estonia is showing the only proper response.

Taking a idea the Swiss have mastered - though without the geographic gift the Swiss have - the Estonians are doing all they can to make themselves a tough target, one that really would not look like it would be worth the trouble it would take to subdue.

Already, she and her three teammates had put out a fire, ridden a horse, identified medicinal herbs from the forest and played hide-and-seek with gun-wielding “enemies” in the woods at night.

By comparison, this would be easy. She knelt in the crinkling, frost-covered grass of a forest clearing and grabbed at the rifle parts in a flurry of clicks and snaps, soon handing the assembled weapon to a referee.

“We just have to stay alive,” Ms. Barnabas said of the main idea behind the Jarva District Patrol Competition, a 24-hour test of the skills useful for partisans, or insurgents, to fight an occupying army, and an improbably popular form of what is called “military sport” in Estonia.
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The competitions, held nearly every weekend, are called war games, but are not intended as fun. The Estonian Defense League, which organizes the events, requires its 25,400 volunteers to turn out occasionally for weekend training sessions that have taken on a serious hue since Russia’s incursions in Ukraine two years ago raised fears of a similar thrust by Moscow into the Baltic States.

Estonia, a NATO member with a population of 1.3 million people and a standing army of about 6,000, would not stand a chance in a conventional war with Russia. But two armies fighting on an open field is not Estonia’s plan, and was not even before Donald J. Trump, the Republican presidential candidate, said European members of NATO should not count on American support unless they pay more alliance costs.

Since the Ukraine war, Estonia has stepped up training for members of the Estonian Defense League, teaching them how to become insurgents, right down to the making of improvised explosive devices, or I.E.D.s, the weapons that plagued the American military in Iraq and Afghanistan. Another response to tensions with Russia is the expansion of a program encouraging Estonians to keep firearms in their homes.

Her neighbors should look at what Estonia is doing. It is a tough neighborhood; be a tough target.

So far in 2014, the big lesson is what people have known for centuries; in Eurasia you cannot ignore Russia. The cliché is accurate, Russia is never as weak or as strong as she seems.

What do the developments so far mean not just for Ukraine, but for all the former Soviet Republics, slumbering Western Europe and Russia's near abroad?

To discuss this and more, for the full hour this Sunday from 5-6pm Eastern will be returning guest Dr. Dmitry Gorenburg, Senior Analyst, CNA Strategic Studies, an Associate at Harvard’s Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies, an author, and host of the Russian Military Reform blog.

Dr. Gorenburg focuses his research on security issues in the former Soviet Union, Russian military reform, Russian foreign policy, ethnic politics and identity, and Russian regional politics. He is also the editor of the journals Problems of Post-Communism and Russian Politics and Law and a Fellow of the Truman National Security Project. From 2005 through 2010, he was the Executive Director of the American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies.

Join us live if you can with the usual suspects in the chat room and offer up your questions for our guest, but if you miss the show you can always listen to the archive at blogtalkradio.

Listen to internet radio with Midrats on Blog Talk Radio

3rd Order Effects from Crimea Start to Form ... Your Silver Lining

Russia has demonstrated, again for those who wish to see, that history belongs to those who make it. Russia is Russia, and hard power trumps soft power.

If the diplomatic, information, and economic levers of power that NATO is lamely pressing on to counter Russia's military efforts win out in time, we will all see eventually. What we do see now, thankfully, is to many nations in Europe this has been a wake up call. Time to leave Cold War habits behind.

First über-neutral Sweden:

Sweden’s government is examining a proposal to boost military spending to defend its own territories and the strategic Baltic Sea area in the face of renewed Russian aggression in Ukraine. There is also a movement among high government officials to re-examine the long-running issue of joining NATO.

The Swedish Cabinet will discuss, in coming weeks, a cross-party coalition proposal to signifi­cantly increase capital spending on the Navy’s submarine fleet.

In a direct response to Russia’s military actions in the Crimean Peninsula, Jan Björklund, the Liberal Peoples’ Party leader and Sweden’s deputy prime minister, is pushing for a “comprehensive strategic military re-think on capability.” Björklund also wants Sweden to “set the wheels in motion” to join NATO.

Once submissive Finland next:

...Finland's defence and security policy is under the spotlight again.

In an interview published on Sunday in the German newspaper Der Tagesspiegel, Prime Minister Jyrki Katainen reiterated the country's stance that Finland is not a neutral country, even though it is not part of any military alliances.The premier stressed that Finland has always kept NATO membership open as a option. Katainen denied that the decision to stay out of the alliance is based on a desire to maintain good relations with Russia.

It is easy to understand the connection west to Denmark and Norway, and to a lessor extent south to Germany - but there are strong bonds to the Baltic republics as well.

For those not up to speed with their Baltic trivia, there are more than just the Baltic Sea that can draw Sweden and Finland closer to NATO, and all you have to do is look at one of Salamander's favorite nations; Estonia.

Estonians still remember the "good old Swedish times" when they were under the Swedish Crown, and after the fall of the Soviet Union, Sweden was one of the first nations the newly freed Estonia reached out to.

Estonians are also close ethnically and linguistically to Finland. For those who have had the chance to visit Finland, Russia, and Estonia will easily not just see this - but feel it. The Baltic nations are Western, not Russian. Latvia and Lithuania more like Poland than Scandinavian, but Western nonetheless.

There is a lot of institutional inertia keeping FIN and SWE out of NATO, but the one good byproduct of the Crimea crisis is this; it shows that as irritation it can be to be in an alliance, when facing the Russians - it is a lot better than being outside it. It will be interesting to see how the numbers move.

The idea of joining NATO has also gained traction among Swedes in recent years. A 2013 poll found that popular support for becoming a member had jumped 9 percent in two years, even though it still falls short of a plurality. "Sweden must realize that we can no longer defend ourselves alone. NATO membership must be debated seriously. It is the best long-term option for our defense and security," said Christian Democratic spokesman Mikael Oscarsson last January after the coalition government to which his party belongs announced a formal review of Swedish military capabilities. "With significantly higher spending on defense and material acquisitions, we will see better equipped and trained Russian troops in this region. This strengthening requires a credible response by Sweden," Oscarsson added.

Swedish membership in NATO would leave Finland as the last non-aligned Scandinavian state, but the Finnish people are warier about picking sides. A February 24 Helsinki News poll, conducted prior to Russia's occupation of Crimea, found that 64 percent of Finns oppose NATO membership, 60 percent oppose forming an EU common-defense policy, and 60 percent oppose a proposed defense alliance between Finland and Sweden. Given Finland's proximity to the Russian border, one can hardly blame them for embracing non-alignment. Henry Kissinger opined in The Washington Post that the new Ukrainian government should follow Finland's example. "That nation leaves no doubt about its fierce independence and cooperates with the West in most fields but carefully avoids institutional hostility toward Russia," he wrote approvingly.

On a personal note, I had the pleasure last decade to spend a lot of time with Swedish and Finnish field-grade officers. Culturally, professionally, and by any other measure - those nations are turn-key members of NATO. It would be a great addition to their nations', NATO's, and be extension - our safety if they were to join.

Or ... this could be just silly fearmongering.

The Life of a Small Light Next to a Sea of Darkness

You are a very small nation who desperately just wants to be left alone. A small outpost of Balto-Scandinavian culture next to a Russian vastness.

It never has been easy, it isn't easy, and odds are it never will be.

For this tiny country of 1.3 million, things are, from one perspective, excellent indeed. Since independence in 1991, Estonia has welcomed democracy and a market economy, become a member of NATO and the European Union, and adopted the euro. The country exudes modernity, consumerism, and freedom. There’s wireless Internet nearly everywhere—parks, pubs, squares, beaches, forests—and nearly always free. When you walk through Tallinn Airport, you feel like you’re in a trendy version of an Ikea store, with semi-inviting cafés, book alcoves, ready-to-use iPads.
Joe Biden might say LaGuardia pales in comparison.

Freedom House gives Estonia highest marks in democratic development, for both political rights and civil liberties. The country ranks higher than the United States in economic freedom in a Heritage Foundation index.

So what’s to worry?
...
Estonia’s ethnic Russian minority comprises nearly a quarter of its population (fellow Baltic nation Lithuania has 5.8 percent; Latvia, nearly 27 percent). As a result, Tallinn has to put up with constant Kremlin complaints—the charges nearly always unsubstantiated by international observers—that Russians in Estonia are treated poorly and subject to discrimination by the Estonian government. Russian president Vladimir Putin is believed to have a personal gripe with the country. Or so Estonian officials think, as we know from diplomatic cables, thanks to WikiLeaks. Putin’s father, who fought with the Red Army during World War II, parachuted on a mission into Estonia, where locals, still angry over the Soviet occupation in 1940—a year before Germany invaded—handed him over to Nazi forces.

What’s clear in any case is this: Moscow loves meddling, provoking, and slapping Estonia around.
...
Some might have thought that NATO and EU membership settles everything. Courtesy WikiLeaks, we know that at least some U.S. officials have considered Estonia paranoid about Russia. It seems instead that recent events in Ukraine and Russian policy toward this small Baltic nation well might concentrate our minds on Kremlin strategy toward Eastern Europe—and on the sad fact that we don’t seem to have one.

Read all of Jeffery Gedmin's article in TWS for the details if you are not up to some of the nuance about the pickle that is Estonia.

Here is the Wikileaks note mentioned:

The Estonian authorities have a pessimistic view of the prospects of relations with Moscow, according to a new portion of secret diplomatic cables obtained by WikiLeaks.

Russian Reporter magazine has published a secret cable sent to Washington by US diplomats in Estonia last spring. The cable allegedly concerns Tallinn’s policy toward Russia and Estonia’s place in US-Russian relations.

The cable, attributed to US diplomats, including Ambassador to Tallinn Michael Polt, describes Estonia’s views of the prospects of relations with Russia as “pessimistic.” The country’s defensive posture is even “based on an almost paranoid perception of an imminent Russian attack,” the document says.

The diplomats tried to find positive signs in Estonia’s approach, stressing that the country “is working to temper its political stance on Russia.” In particular, Tallinn prefers to handle bilateral issues with Russia “quietly,” the document reads.

Who are we actually sending as ambassador to Estonia? Do they know of nothing about their history? Have they not visited the Occupations Museum in Tallinn? Idiots.

You aren't being paranoid if your are a neighbor of Russia; you are just a student of history.

The Power of Small Nations

One of the worst parts about trying to have a logical discourse with people on how our government can and should do things is when the other side says, "But in Denmark they do ...." (NB: the following applies to any small European country, I will just use Denmark as an example as it is often the one used.)

I usually take a deep breath and ask them at this point, "Have you ever been to Denmark? Do you know who big it is in size and population?"

At that point, I usually just get hubidahubiduh and a few blinks. No, most of the time they haven't, and if they have, they still have no idea how small it is or that fact it has a population of only 5.5 million. I don't think you have to actually been to a nation to discuss what goes on there, but you at least have to know the basic demographic, historical, and geographical fundamentals.

The think is, not everything a nation does is scalable. You can do things in a small country that simply cannot be replicated in a nation as large as ours at ~315 million.

As a matter of fact, more and more evidence piles up that if you discount the military advantages of being large, that their are huge advantages to being a citizen of a smaller nation (as long as it is "free") that you simply cannot gain in a larger one. There is greater accountability up, and better service going now.

A case in point, an absolutely outstanding boutique people and nation - Estonia (population 1.3 million).

You need to read the whole thing - but if we would move away from the huge central government toward more power to the States (as a Federal Republic we were designed) we could take advantage of some of the plusses of being part of a smaller nation. More Estonia, less Russia - so to speak.

The first building block of e-government is telling citizens apart. This sounds blatantly obvious, but alternating between referring to a person by his social security number, taxpayer number, and other identifiers doesn’t cut it. Estonia uses a simple, unique ID methodology across all systems, from paper passports to bank records to government offices and hospitals. A citizen with the personal ID code 37501011234 is a male born in the 20th century (3) in year ’75 on January 1 as the 123rd baby of that day. The number ends with a computational checksum to easily detect typos.

For these identified citizens to transact with each other, Estonia passed the Digital Signatures Act in 2000. The state standardized a national Public Key Infrastructure (PKI), which binds citizen identities to their cryptographic keys, and now doesn’t care if any Tiit and Toivo (to use common Estonian names) sign a contract in electronic form with certificates or plain ink on paper. A signature is a signature in the eyes of the law.
...
A prime example is the income-tax declarations Estonians “fill” out. Quote marks are appropriate here, because when an average Estonian opens the submission form once a year, it usually looks more like a review wizard: “next -> next -> next -> submit.” This is because data has been moving throughout the year. When employers report employment taxes every month, their data entries are linked to people’s tax records too. Charitable donations reported by non-profits are recorded as deductions for the giver in the same fashion. Tax deductions on mortgages are registered from data interchange with commercial banks. And so forth. Not only is the income-tax rate in the country a flat 21 percent, but Estonians get tax overpayments put back on their bank accounts (digitally transferred, of course) within two days of submitting their forms.

This liquid movement of data between systems relies on a fundamental principle to protect people’s privacy: Without question, it is always the citizen who owns his or her data and retains the right to control access to that data. For example, in the case of fully digital health records and prescriptions, people can granularly assign access rights to the general practitioners and specialized doctors of their choosing. And in scenarios where they can’t legally block the state from seeing their information, as with Estonian e-policemen using real-time terminals, they at least get a record of who accessed their data and when. If an honest citizen learns that an official has been snooping on them without a valid reason, the person can file an inquiry and get the official fired.

That is what you can do in a small nation that simply is not executable in a larger one ... at least that efficiently. 

A final note - can DOD get rid of the SSN and use the Estonian number process? Just an idea. All the problems using the SSN when a "service number" would be better for everyone ... but a different topic for another day, perhaps.

If you ever get a chance to go to Estonia ... go. If noting else, just to marvel at their exceptionally cool burial habits, well - cool if you like woods and a lingering pagan ethos.