Support from readers like you keeps The Journal open.
You are visiting us because we have something you value. Independent, unbiased news that tells the truth. Advertising revenue goes some way to support our mission, but this year it has not been enough.
If you've seen value in our reporting, please contribute what you can, so we can continue to produce accurate and meaningful journalism. For everyone who needs it.
THE FORMER CHIEF of Staff of the Estonian army has said that neutrality is a “luxury only rich countries can afford” and said his home country is ready to fight the Russian military in the event of an invasion.
Estonia is among four small countries with a border with Russia on the Eastern fringes of Europe – Finland lies to the north with Latvia and Lithuania to the south.
The Baltic sea state has a history of invasions and oppression from the Russians – it suffered horrifically under Soviet occupation for much of the 20th century.
Major General Meelis Kiili is the National Military Representative of the Estonian Defence Forces to NATO’s European command. He was chief of staff of the Estonian Army from 2005 to 2006 and Deputy Chief of Staff of the Armed Forces in 2006 to 2007.
Kiili was in Dublin in recent days to speak at the ‘Future of Irish Defence’ summit organised by non-profit security group Slándáil.
The officer has a long history in military life having served first in national service when his country was in the clutches of the Soviet Union.
But following the restoration of Estonia’s independence in the 1990s he joined his country’s Defence Forces and rose up through the ranks.
In an interview with The Journal Kiili said that geography no longer protects countries from aggression and spoke about neutrality and the importance of a well-developed indigenous defence strategy.
He also had a stark warning for Russian soldiers massing on his country’s border – “Go home and live”.
“I think it is the wrong perception that only Estonia and the neighbourhood of the bordering countries of Russia are at risk, everybody’s at risk,” he said.
Kiili, who has been educated at the US Army War College, the NATO and Baltic Defence Colleges, said that modern warfare, with its combination of lethal weaponry and hybrid cyber tactics, is a threat for every corner of the world.
He said his State has been preparing for a Russian invasion since it became independent in the 1990s.
“The Ukrainian invasion in February, nothing really changed for Estonia. In terms of Russia, we knew that it was going to happen. And we have prepared for that since we restored our independence.
So we didn’t look there were some times we were sometimes taken as being paranoid about our eastern neighbour. We were just realistic. I think the entire free world is at risk today. The battlefield it is in Ukraine but the conflict is between western society – the transatlantic world versus Russia.
Pragmatic
In speaking to Finnish and Swedish experts The Journal has discovered a similar theme – one of pragmatic necessity in defence. Estonia is no different and Kiili takes that a step further.
“We’ve been pragmatic. Our task is also to educate our allies, like minded nations, to understand that there is no point calling to Mr Putin. He’s using different taxonomy.
“The basic principle is we need to have a very clear understanding of their way of thinking. It is very different. It is alien to the Western world,” he said.
Kiili said that he was “surprised” at how often Western states have fallen for Russia’s deceptions in negotiations – he was particularly critical of western Governments who are dependent on Russian energy.
“Europe became dependent on the Russian gas but on the other hand, Russia is very dependent on the income from the European Union.
“We just pay the price now and that’s the money but Ukrainians are paying in blood and with their lives,” he added.
Advertisement
Estonia joined NATO in 2004. Alamy Stock Photo
Alamy Stock Photo
Kiili said that Estonia has been using the model of a whole society approach to defence where there is a buy-in from all citizens. He said the defence model he and other military leaders have advocated for is “a citizens resistance and resilience against aggression”.
Besides that strategy he also believes that membership of NATO, which the country joined in 2004, and the wider western alliance of the EU will help his State “avoid a battle” with their eastern nation.
Repeatedly, throughout the interview, Kiili mentioned the Soviet behaviour during World War Two and listed atrocities perpetrated by the USSR throughout the following decade.
During WWII Estonia suffered invasions from Germany and Russia.
In 1940 Estonia was annexed by Russia. It resulted in a massive blood letting with senior officials and people across the broader society executed by Russia.
A German invasion followed but this was again pushed back by the Soviets in 1944 but rather than being a liberating force it began a decades-long occupation. It is estimated that Estonia lost 25% of its population in WWII.
From 1944 on there was a massive Estonian resistance movement against the Soviets.
By 1949 Russia had begun a forceful process of changing the demographics of the population from 98% Estonian to just over 60% with forced deportations of citizens and a Russification strategy that saw thousands of Russians moved into the tiny Baltic country.
Caution
He offered a word of caution to the Russians who may be favourable to an invasion of the Baltic States and a revisiting of those turbulent times.
Kiili – speaking just above a whisper as he discussed his country’s defence strategy – leaned forward in his chair, fixed his gaze, and said:
One thing is clear. This time, we are going to fight. Every Estonian citizen must be protected, defended, every inch of our land. We are not going to yield it.
Kiili said that the Estonian State has defence enshrined in its constitution as a fundamental right and it is an obligation of each citizen to assist in defence.
“If we don’t resist what’s going to happen? You have seen what’s going to happen in Bucha, in the suburbs of Mariupol. It is a massacre, they say it is genocide. So absolutely we must fight,” he added.
The Major General said the claims from Moscow of Russia liberating Ukraine from Nazis is “mad” and it “insults the intelligence” of everyone including Russians.
He said there is a broad consensus in Estonia around defence funding and little to no debate on the expenditure – the State spends 2.7% of GDP on Defence – for comparison Ireland spends 0.2%.
Major General Meelis Kiili. Alamy Stock Photo
Alamy Stock Photo
Kiili said he did not wish to advise Ireland as to its defence funding model but said that neutrality is a concept that must be adequately funded.
“Neutrality is a luxury only rich countries like Switzerland can afford,” he said.
“They need to learn you need to pay for that. You need to increase your defense budget to fund it.
And it’s based not on deduction, but it is based on our own experience. In 1940, we were neutral. The army wasn’t worthy, the armed forces were not up to the task. If the adversary wants to invade a neutral country who has no defences, it’s done, simply, it’s done.
Kiili concludes his interview with an observation on the current threat landscape from an Irish perspective.
“I think that the Irish are very good people – they are joyful, open. But there’s a world beyond Irish borders as well and sometimes that world is not so nice as here in Dublin.
“We need to be wary of the threats and challenges. They (may) not possibly be in our nearest proximity, but in a proximity – they are real.
“We need to stand for our values and lifestyle together,” he said.
Readers like you are keeping these stories free for everyone...
A mix of advertising and supporting contributions helps keep paywalls away from valuable information like this article.
Over 5,000 readers like you have already stepped up and support us with a monthly payment or a once-off donation.
To embed this post, copy the code below on your site
Close
34 Comments
This is YOUR comments community. Stay civil, stay constructive, stay on topic.
Please familiarise yourself with our comments policy
here
before taking part.
Maybe bertie set the precedent in memory loss..28k winnings and couldnt remember its name…dunno about you steve..but I,d know what it had for breakfast that morning..
“Why Ireland is Buried under Debt”
The ECB is responsible for the Eurozone area and banking regulation. The ECB failed to regulate banks. The Commodities Futures Modernization Act 2000 (USA) and the repeal of the Glas Stegall Act 1999 (USA) legalized dodgy banking practices. Larry Summers & Timothy Geithner (USA) ensured these practices were exported to other regions including the Eurozone via the W.T.O. Financial Services Negotiations 1). Result: an inter-connected world of dodgy banker paper, seruritization of people’s homes, re-selling of mortgages many times over (re-hypothecation), CDO’s etc etc. A race between banks for short term profit exposing home owners to risk as the banks took more and more risk driving up house prices creating the property bubble which burst. Result: negative equity & complete collapse in the construction industry-which is needed.
2 Problems: a) unemployment & tax collapse and b) bailout of the banks. Both a) & b) caused the figures above along with c) no spending by people in massive negative equity just about ‘hanging on’.
The ECB (Trichet) forced Ireland to bail out Anglo Irish Bank which was not systemically important in order to get Deutche Bank’s & BNP Paribas money back.
The ECB did not ask Latvia to bail out “Latvijas KrajBanka” (LKB) which was allowed to go bankrupt in 2011 because there was no German money in it. The ECB still allowed Latvia to join the Euro (JAN2014) commending their low debt rate.
The massive debt spiral then increased as taxes are increased to fund the debt but because of a collapse in disposable income spending collapses, tax revenues decline, and unemployment costs increase.
This disasterous level of debt is the result of policies persued by Fianna Fail while in government,they then rewarded themselves with massive pensions that they themselves approved under the benchmarking scam of public funds,150.000 euro per year pension for the rest of his life,thats the bill that Berti has left the Irish taxpayers for ruining this country.
Did it forget the huge Pension Liability that the State has? (And I presume on the assets side, it ignored the state’s oil resources since it intends to just give it away).
Yes. The quid pro quo is the government gets e700;000;00.00 so that the public section pension stream is not interrupted by , perish the thought!, shortage of funds. It’s all good fir those on the government teat, bad for everybody else, particularly those not even born yet.
So after 5 years of Austerity – we are worse off , and the govt still do as they are told – to get the rotten German and Irish capitalists their money back
”While in 2007 our liabilities were made up primarily of short-term debt and bonds, that type of liability is much less of the overall pie now as we can’t access funding from the normal lending markets in the way we used to.”
-
- Is this because of the rating agencies who have no credibility anyway
”the American corporate ratings agencies, which “downgraded” Greece to “junk”. These same agencies gave triple-A ratings to billions of dollars in so-called sub-prime mortgage securities and so precipitated the economic collapse in 2008.”
the whole thing is a monopoly game played by the big capitalists and the Plebs put up with it .
But there is no getting away from fact – that Germany rules this country .
.
“government’s liabilities ” you mean the ‘Irish people’s liabilities’ since the last government turned the banks debts into sovereign debts that landed the people of Ireland with the debts. Governments come and go, the current instalment of chancers will give way to another bunch in a couple of years and the merry-go-round will continue, one thing that won’t change is the fact that, unlike the parasite politicians, the debts are not going to go away with big fat tax payer funded pensions. Those debts are there for your kids and your grandkids to pay for long into the future. They will be paying back debts that they had nothing to do with whilst the ones who actually caused the disaster in the first place are sat back laughing their heads off as the quaff champagne in sunnier climes and safe in the knowledge that in the republic of no accountability they are untouchable.
Yet people still shout for no more austerity,staggering level of debt for such a small country and we don’t even have military spending to blame this on.
Now this is very good info for the shiners The other shower f’cd the country & the present shower have just added more debt & put us. In the biggest rescission 20 years .
Who in gods name is going to save us .
“The Council wants the government to perform a €3.1 billion adjustment in the Budget next month but as we know that is the subject of much wrangling among the coalition partners.”
Surely this is the main part of the story rather than the graph.
59 people dead following nightclub fire in North Macedonia
Updated
3 hrs ago
40.3k
37
simon harris goes stateside
Tánaiste's warning on tariffs: 'We're heading for a significant period of turbulence'
Christina Finn
reports from New York
5 mins ago
61
0
St Patrick's Day
Quiz: Can you spot which of these 'Irish' sayings are real and which are completely made-up?
22 hrs ago
41.5k
68
Your Cookies. Your Choice.
Cookies help provide our news service while also enabling the advertising needed to fund this work.
We categorise cookies as Necessary, Performance (used to analyse the site performance) and Targeting (used to target advertising which helps us keep this service free).
We and our 157 partners store and access personal data, like browsing data or unique identifiers, on your device. Selecting Accept All enables tracking technologies to support the purposes shown under we and our partners process data to provide. If trackers are disabled, some content and ads you see may not be as relevant to you. You can resurface this menu to change your choices or withdraw consent at any time by clicking the Cookie Preferences link on the bottom of the webpage .Your choices will have effect within our Website. For more details, refer to our Privacy Policy.
We and our vendors process data for the following purposes:
Use precise geolocation data. Actively scan device characteristics for identification. Store and/or access information on a device. Personalised advertising and content, advertising and content measurement, audience research and services development.
Cookies Preference Centre
We process your data to deliver content or advertisements and measure the delivery of such content or advertisements to extract insights about our website. We share this information with our partners on the basis of consent. You may exercise your right to consent, based on a specific purpose below or at a partner level in the link under each purpose. Some vendors may process your data based on their legitimate interests, which does not require your consent. You cannot object to tracking technologies placed to ensure security, prevent fraud, fix errors, or deliver and present advertising and content, and precise geolocation data and active scanning of device characteristics for identification may be used to support this purpose. This exception does not apply to targeted advertising. These choices will be signaled to our vendors participating in the Transparency and Consent Framework.
Manage Consent Preferences
Necessary Cookies
Always Active
These cookies are necessary for the website to function and cannot be switched off in our systems. They are usually only set in response to actions made by you which amount to a request for services, such as setting your privacy preferences, logging in or filling in forms. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not then work.
Targeting Cookies
These cookies may be set through our site by our advertising partners. They may be used by those companies to build a profile of your interests and show you relevant adverts on other sites. They do not store directly personal information, but are based on uniquely identifying your browser and internet device. If you do not allow these cookies, you will experience less targeted advertising.
Functional Cookies
These cookies enable the website to provide enhanced functionality and personalisation. They may be set by us or by third party providers whose services we have added to our pages. If you do not allow these cookies then these services may not function properly.
Performance Cookies
These cookies allow us to count visits and traffic sources so we can measure and improve the performance of our site. They help us to know which pages are the most and least popular and see how visitors move around the site. All information these cookies collect is aggregated and therefore anonymous. If you do not allow these cookies we will not be able to monitor our performance.
Store and/or access information on a device 109 partners can use this purpose
Cookies, device or similar online identifiers (e.g. login-based identifiers, randomly assigned identifiers, network based identifiers) together with other information (e.g. browser type and information, language, screen size, supported technologies etc.) can be stored or read on your device to recognise it each time it connects to an app or to a website, for one or several of the purposes presented here.
Personalised advertising and content, advertising and content measurement, audience research and services development 141 partners can use this purpose
Use limited data to select advertising 111 partners can use this purpose
Advertising presented to you on this service can be based on limited data, such as the website or app you are using, your non-precise location, your device type or which content you are (or have been) interacting with (for example, to limit the number of times an ad is presented to you).
Create profiles for personalised advertising 83 partners can use this purpose
Information about your activity on this service (such as forms you submit, content you look at) can be stored and combined with other information about you (for example, information from your previous activity on this service and other websites or apps) or similar users. This is then used to build or improve a profile about you (that might include possible interests and personal aspects). Your profile can be used (also later) to present advertising that appears more relevant based on your possible interests by this and other entities.
Use profiles to select personalised advertising 83 partners can use this purpose
Advertising presented to you on this service can be based on your advertising profiles, which can reflect your activity on this service or other websites or apps (like the forms you submit, content you look at), possible interests and personal aspects.
Create profiles to personalise content 38 partners can use this purpose
Information about your activity on this service (for instance, forms you submit, non-advertising content you look at) can be stored and combined with other information about you (such as your previous activity on this service or other websites or apps) or similar users. This is then used to build or improve a profile about you (which might for example include possible interests and personal aspects). Your profile can be used (also later) to present content that appears more relevant based on your possible interests, such as by adapting the order in which content is shown to you, so that it is even easier for you to find content that matches your interests.
Use profiles to select personalised content 34 partners can use this purpose
Content presented to you on this service can be based on your content personalisation profiles, which can reflect your activity on this or other services (for instance, the forms you submit, content you look at), possible interests and personal aspects. This can for example be used to adapt the order in which content is shown to you, so that it is even easier for you to find (non-advertising) content that matches your interests.
Measure advertising performance 132 partners can use this purpose
Information regarding which advertising is presented to you and how you interact with it can be used to determine how well an advert has worked for you or other users and whether the goals of the advertising were reached. For instance, whether you saw an ad, whether you clicked on it, whether it led you to buy a product or visit a website, etc. This is very helpful to understand the relevance of advertising campaigns.
Measure content performance 60 partners can use this purpose
Information regarding which content is presented to you and how you interact with it can be used to determine whether the (non-advertising) content e.g. reached its intended audience and matched your interests. For instance, whether you read an article, watch a video, listen to a podcast or look at a product description, how long you spent on this service and the web pages you visit etc. This is very helpful to understand the relevance of (non-advertising) content that is shown to you.
Understand audiences through statistics or combinations of data from different sources 74 partners can use this purpose
Reports can be generated based on the combination of data sets (like user profiles, statistics, market research, analytics data) regarding your interactions and those of other users with advertising or (non-advertising) content to identify common characteristics (for instance, to determine which target audiences are more receptive to an ad campaign or to certain contents).
Develop and improve services 83 partners can use this purpose
Information about your activity on this service, such as your interaction with ads or content, can be very helpful to improve products and services and to build new products and services based on user interactions, the type of audience, etc. This specific purpose does not include the development or improvement of user profiles and identifiers.
Use limited data to select content 38 partners can use this purpose
Content presented to you on this service can be based on limited data, such as the website or app you are using, your non-precise location, your device type, or which content you are (or have been) interacting with (for example, to limit the number of times a video or an article is presented to you).
Use precise geolocation data 46 partners can use this special feature
With your acceptance, your precise location (within a radius of less than 500 metres) may be used in support of the purposes explained in this notice.
Actively scan device characteristics for identification 27 partners can use this special feature
With your acceptance, certain characteristics specific to your device might be requested and used to distinguish it from other devices (such as the installed fonts or plugins, the resolution of your screen) in support of the purposes explained in this notice.
Ensure security, prevent and detect fraud, and fix errors 90 partners can use this special purpose
Always Active
Your data can be used to monitor for and prevent unusual and possibly fraudulent activity (for example, regarding advertising, ad clicks by bots), and ensure systems and processes work properly and securely. It can also be used to correct any problems you, the publisher or the advertiser may encounter in the delivery of content and ads and in your interaction with them.
Deliver and present advertising and content 97 partners can use this special purpose
Always Active
Certain information (like an IP address or device capabilities) is used to ensure the technical compatibility of the content or advertising, and to facilitate the transmission of the content or ad to your device.
Match and combine data from other data sources 72 partners can use this feature
Always Active
Information about your activity on this service may be matched and combined with other information relating to you and originating from various sources (for instance your activity on a separate online service, your use of a loyalty card in-store, or your answers to a survey), in support of the purposes explained in this notice.
Link different devices 53 partners can use this feature
Always Active
In support of the purposes explained in this notice, your device might be considered as likely linked to other devices that belong to you or your household (for instance because you are logged in to the same service on both your phone and your computer, or because you may use the same Internet connection on both devices).
Identify devices based on information transmitted automatically 86 partners can use this feature
Always Active
Your device might be distinguished from other devices based on information it automatically sends when accessing the Internet (for instance, the IP address of your Internet connection or the type of browser you are using) in support of the purposes exposed in this notice.
Save and communicate privacy choices 68 partners can use this special purpose
Always Active
The choices you make regarding the purposes and entities listed in this notice are saved and made available to those entities in the form of digital signals (such as a string of characters). This is necessary in order to enable both this service and those entities to respect such choices.
have your say