Fearing Russian invasion Estonia's civilians heed their country's call to arms

EU member Estonia feels threatened by neighbour Russia. This year, the small NATO country will invest over 3% of its GDP to beef up its defence capabilities. It has also been hosting NATO exercises and training civilians in trench warfare, as EuronewsWitness reporter Hans von der Brelie discovered.

Indrek Jurtšenko is a trained opera singer. But today he takes me to a military manoeuvre in the Estonian forests. Armed civilians, part of the “Estonian Defence League” (EDL), are war-gaming together with professional soldiers: “In our exercise there are 500 people from Estonia, Lithuania and France participating”, he says.

The drill is called “Northern Frog” and takes place around a former soviet military airfield. Close to the landing strip, infantry troops from NATO-partner France fortify trenches. In the nearby forest, Baltic volunteers are gathering. They are armed civilians with professional military skills. It's quite an intriguing setting; Estonian milita forces and professional NATO-troops are mutually testing and upgrading their combat skills for trench warfare.

Local knowledge, local strength From a French professional perspective, what is the advantage of such a militia force, I ask Captain Hubert. “They are operating in their own zone of living, in the region they belong to”, he tells me. “And that’s why they can react at once exactly when and where they are needed.”

Some 30,000 members signed up with the EDL. Workers, clerks, students or farmers spending their time off in military exercises; they receive no pay for this patriotic service. Many of them have their own weapon at home and they know how to handle it when things become serious.

To never ever again live under foreign rule, that’s Reet Saari motivation for joining. She’s a mother and sales manager at a hardware store. Today she leads a reconnaissance patrol – a heavily armed all-female combat unit. "Estonia is a small country, so everybody has to contribute to the defence efforts in one way or another. Some can fight at the frontline in the forest, like me. Others can help with support tasks and logistics.” In manoeuvres like this one Reet learnt shooting, battlefield medecin, infantry tactics and close combat.

Spend to defend In the Estonian capital Tallinn I meet defence minister Hanno Pevkur. Estonia urges its NATO partners to increase their defence spending. Two percent of GDP is not enough, Pevkur insists: “The main threat will remain Russia. The dictatorship will grow”, he says on record.

In this context the Estonian Parliament voted to keep defence expenditure at three percent of GDP. This year it could be even more. What are the priorities for 2024-2027, I ask the Defence Minister. Pevkur: “We are buying self-propelled howitzers on wheels, new medium range air defence, a lot of anti-tank systems and a lot of new ammunitions. In the last two years we have bought more ammunition as we have bought in the past 30 years in total!”

Estonia is exposed to Russian destabilisation efforts through airspace violations, fake-news-campaigns, cyber-attacks and GPS signal jammings. Is Estonia really at risk, I ask former EDL commander Riho Ühtegi, who has also a background with Estonian special forces and intelligence. NATO membership is a solid safeguard, he knows, but “this empire feeling, it's not gone from Russia, they still have it. So, because of that, we must be ready”, Ühtegi warns.

All for one, one for all NATO officers are full of praise for the fully-trained civilians in the Baltics. The militia fighters are able to improvise and to find solutions for bad surprises even in the midst of stressful combat situations, they say. Chains of command are working well, reconnaissance and communication flows are professional, I get told in a few background details on the ground.

Some voices from Ukraine are sending alarming signals: The Baltic States could be next on Putin's list, they say. However, article 5 of the NATO treaty guarantees to come to the aid of any member if it is attacked; one for all, all for one. An evocation shared by Indrek Jurtšenko, Reet Saari, Hanno Pevkur, Riho Ühtegi, Captain Hubert and many other people living in the western defence alliance.

EU member Estonia feels threatened by neighbour Russia. This year, the small NATO country will invest over 3% of its GDP to beef up its defence capabilities.

3% GDP of $38B is just over $1B.

However, article 5 of the NATO treaty guarantees to come to the aid of any member if it is attacked; one for all, all for one.

Horse poop meets reality:

https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/topics_110496.htm

Collective Defence and Article 5

NATO
Last updated 04 Jul 2023 11:47

[Excerpt]

A cornerstone of the Alliance
Article 5
In 1949, the primary aim of the North Atlantic Treaty – NATO’s founding treaty – was to create a pact of mutual assistance to counter the risk that the Soviet Union would seek to extend its control of Eastern Europe to other parts of the continent.
Every participating country agreed that this form of solidarity was at the heart of the Treaty, effectively making Article 5 on collective defence a key component of the Alliance.
Article 5 provides that if a NATO Ally is the victim of an armed attack, each and every other member of the Alliance will consider this act of violence as an armed attack against all members and will take the actions it deems necessary to assist the Ally attacked.
Article 5
“The Parties agree that an armed attack against one or more of them in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against them all and consequently they agree that, if such an armed attack occurs, each of them, in exercise of the right of individual or collective self-defence recognized by Article 51 of the Charter of the United Nations, will assist the Party or Parties so attacked by taking forthwith, individually and in concert with the other Parties, such action as it deems necessary, including the use of armed force, to restore and maintain the security of the North Atlantic area.
Any such armed attack and all measures taken as a result thereof shall immediately be reported to the Security Council. Such measures shall be terminated when the Security Council has taken the measures necessary to restore and maintain international peace and security.”
This article is complemented by Article 6, which stipulates:
Article 6¹
“For the purpose of Article 5, an armed attack on one or more of the Parties is deemed to include an armed attack:
on the territory of any of the Parties in Europe or North America, on the Algerian Departments of France², on the territory of Turkey or on the Islands under the jurisdiction of any of the Parties in the North Atlantic area north of the Tropic of Cancer;
on the forces, vessels, or aircraft of any of the Parties, when in or over these territories or any other area in Europe in which occupation forces of any of the Parties were stationed on the date when the Treaty entered into force or the Mediterranean Sea or the North Atlantic area north of the Tropic of Cancer.”
The principle of providing assistance
With the invocation of Article 5, Allies can provide any form of assistance they deem necessary to respond to a situation. This is an individual obligation on each Ally and each Ally is responsible for determining what it deems necessary in the particular circumstances.
This assistance is taken forward in concert with other Allies. It is not necessarily military and depends on the material resources of each country. It is therefore left to the judgment of each individual member country to determine how it will contribute. Each country will consult with the other members, bearing in mind that the ultimate aim is to “to restore and maintain the security of the North Atlantic area”.
At the drafting of Article 5 in the late 1940s, there was consensus on the principle of mutual assistance, but fundamental disagreement on the modalities of implementing this commitment. The European participants wanted to ensure that the United States would automatically come to their assistance should one of the signatories come under attack; the United States did not want to make such a pledge and obtained that this be reflected in the wording of Article 5

This is why NATO has expanded.
Because small countries fear the Russian Bear.

And now small countries do not fear the Russian Bear, and poke the Russian Bear?

Has NATO expansion in violation of the Russian Monroe Doctrine worked? Has the U.S. Monroe Doctrine worked for the Americas?

The United States dictates to the little countries on two continents that they shall not be permitted to allow any foreign military dominion upon their sovereign territory.

Black's Law Dictionary, 11th Ed., 2019

Monroe Doctrine. (1850) The principle that the United States will allow no intervention or domination in the Western Hemisphere by any non-American country.

- - - - - - - - - -

Polk Doctrine. Int'l Law. The principle by President James K. Polk that the Monroe Doctrine (dating from 1823) remained sound and that the United States would oppose any European interference in North America. Cf. MONROE DOCTRINE.

Below is the Polk Doctrine, reaffirming and extending the Monroe Doctrine, from Polk's First Annual Address to Congress of December 2, 1845.

https://millercenter.org/the-presidency/presidential-speeches/december-2-1845-first-annual-message

[excerpt]

It is well known to the American people and to all nations that this Government has never interfered with the relations subsisting between other governments. We have never made ourselves parties to their wars or their alliances; we have not sought their territories by conquest; we have not mingled with parties in their domestic struggles; and believing our own form of government to be the best, we have never attempted to propagate it by intrigues, by diplomacy, or by force. We may claim on this continent a like exemption from European interference. The nations of America are equally sovereign and independent with those of Europe. They possess the same rights, independent of all foreign interposition, to make war, to conclude peace, and to regulate their internal affairs. The people of the United States can not, therefore, view with indifference attempts of European powers to interfere with the independent action of the nations on this continent. The American system of government is entirely different from that of Europe. Jealousy among the different sovereigns of Europe, lest any one of them might become too powerful for the rest, has caused them anxiously to desire the establishment of what they term the "balance of power." It can not be permitted to have any application on the North American continent, and especially to the United States. We must ever maintain the principle that the people of this continent alone have the right to decide their own destiny. Should any portion of them, constituting an independent state, propose to unite themselves with our Confederacy, this will be a question for them and us to determine without any foreign interposition. We can never consent that European powers shall interfere to prevent such a union because it might disturb the "balance of power" which they may desire to maintain upon this continent. Near a quarter of a century ago the principle was distinctly announced to the world, in the annual message of one of my predecessors, that—
The American continents, by the free and independent condition which they have assumed and maintain, are henceforth not to be considered as subjects for colonization by any European powers.
This principle will apply with greatly increased force should any European power attempt to establish any new colony in North America. In the existing circumstances of the world the present is deemed a proper occasion to reiterate and reaffirm the principle avowed by Mr. Monroe and to state my cordial concurrence in its wisdom and sound policy. The reassertion of this principle, especially in reference to North America, is at this day but the promulgation of a policy which no European power should cherish the disposition to resist. Existing rights of every European nation should be respected, but it is due alike to our safety and our interests that the efficient protection of our laws should be extended over our whole territorial limits, and that it should be distinctly announced to the world as our settled policy that no future European colony or dominion shall with our consent be planted or established on any part of the North American continent.

Grant's Corollary

https://library.cqpress.com/cqresearcher/document.php?id=cqresrre1927012000

The doctrine promulgated by President Monroe,” he said, “has been adhered to by all political parties, and I now deem it proper to assert the equally important principle that hereafter no territory on this continent shall be regarded as subject to transfer to a European power.

And then there was the Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine.

https://www.archives.gov/milestone-documents/roosevelt-corollary

[Excerpt, Theodore Roosevelt’s Annual Message to Congress, December 6, 1904]

Any country whose people conduct themselves well can count upon our hearty friendship. If a nation shows that it knows how to act with reasonable efficiency and decency in social and political matters, if it keeps order and pays its obligations, it need fear no interference from the United States. Chronic wrongdoing, or an impotence which results in a general loosening of the ties of civilized society, may in America, as elsewhere, ultimately require intervention by some civilized nation, and in the Western Hemisphere the adherence of the United States to the Monroe Doctrine may force the United States, however reluctantly, in flagrant cases of such wrongdoing or impotence, to the exercise of an international police power.

https://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Monroe_Doctrine

President John F. Kennedy said at an August 29, 1962 news conference:

The Monroe Doctrine means what it has meant since President Monroe and John Quincy Adams enunciated it, and that is that we would oppose a foreign power extending its power to the Western Hemisphere [sic], and that is why we oppose what is happening in Cuba today. That is why we have cut off our trade. That is why we worked in the OAS and in other ways to isolate the Communist menace in Cuba. That is why we will continue to give a good deal of our effort and attention to it.

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