Almost 10 years after the Russian invasion of Georgia in August 2008, it’s clear NATO still needs to learn more quickly from our partners with a deeper history of fighting Russian aggression in all its various forms. Foremost of those partners is Estonia, which, unlike Georgia, is a full NATO member and has been since 2004. There’s an unspoken duality underlying the mind-set of Estonian defense. To survive, you must integrate: The three Baltic states—Estonia plus Latvia and Lithuania—acted as a unified region to achieve NATO and EU membership, and they continue to engage the U.S. and NATO from that “B3” format above all. The idea that Estonia—whose entire population isn’t much bigger than Russia's standing army, and which has little on its own in the way of air power and armor—could withstand a Russian assault might seem like a silly discussion from the far side of the Atlantic. But Estonia has resources that are as much in demand in the alliance as TOW missiles and tanks: will and a mobilized population. In a country of just over 1.3 million, fully 60,000 are trained and serve in the military or reserves. The importance of this human element cannot be dismissed: Estonians still have vivid memories of the price of occupation, and this perspective sharpens strategic planning in unexpected ways. This is in no small part why U.S. Special Forces have committed new resources to the Baltics, including Estonia: to learn from local experience, and to challenge America’s thinking about Russia and what the U.S. can do to build a new kind of deterrence against hybrid threats.
On a recent rainy afternoon in Tallinn, in the shadow of Estonia’s Freedom Cross, I met Colonel Riho Uhtegi, commander of the Estonian Special Operations Force, to discuss the Russian threat and the new deterrence. “People talk about this ‘Five Days War’ in Georgia” said Uhtegi, staring out into the rain. “But it wasn’t five days. The hybrid campaign started much earlier. No one wanted to see it.” “Modern warfare is asymmetric in nature,” Uhtegi told me. “It is difficult to find the enemy forces on the ground. It is difficult to identify them, fix their position and destroy them. But this is what we must prepare for here. Like Afghanistan, Iraq—but here.” “There are always these discussions. Like, yeah. The Russians can get to Tallinn in two days. ... Maybe. [The Estonian capital is about 125 miles from the Russian border.] But they can’t get all of Estonia in two days. They can get to Tallinn, and behind them, we will cut their communication lines and supplies lines and everything else.” That dead-eyed Baltic stare fixes me again. “They can get to Tallinn in two days. But they will die in Tallinn. And they know this. … They will get fire from every corner, at every step.” But Uhtegi believes deterring Russia requires every Estonian’s participation—not just the military. “The bad thing is the panic. We try to explain to people: Resistance in times of war starts today. It starts with resilience. We must be ready for everything and teach people what to do if something happens.” “I don’t know what it would be like if the Russians really start to fight,” Uhtegi told me as we walked out into the clearing skies, the Freedom Cross now glowing above the square. “Just that every Estonian will fight.”
