Smart Power in Austere Times

There has never been a better time than right now to set in motion Smart Power as the new pardigm of American foreign policy than during current belt tightening by governments on both sides of the Atlantic.  I have always disliked what I would call the predecessor of Smart Power:  “Do more with less!”  Unless we are talking about nuclear breeder reactors, there really is no “more with less.”  In an organizational context  that term has always suggested to me that people should work more hours, achieve all the same goals with little or no prioritization, and with fewer resources and even less compensation for their efforts.  You can do this for a brief period to bridge a temporary crisis, but in the long term, any organization that demands more with less ends up only achieving less with less and demoralizing its workforce, robbing it of its  creative energies.

In contrast, Smart Power proposes to to do more and to do it better by combining the energies of more contributors to a common goal, even as program and human resources of individual organizational units are being reduced.  Take as an example Secretary of State Clinton’s ”3 D’s ” of U.S. foreign policy:  diplomacy, defense, and development.  Through the combined efforts of the Department of State, the Pentagon and USAID, along with those of other U.S. government entities in support of the 3 D’s, U.S. foreign policy becomes smarter and more effective, even as the budget knife cuts into U.S. government outlays.

Such constructive interagency cooperation is far from routine in an environment famous for interagency disagreements and outright bureaucratic battles.  And while the leadership of President Obama and his relevant cabinet officers is a decisive factor in making Smart Power work, necessity also plays a key role.  The common enemy of deficits and economic downturn is no small motivating factor in turn bureaucratic warriors into Smart Power players.  In Washington and around the world, we have already made a strong start down the Smart Power road and the coming years will show whether we can sustain this new foreign policy paradigm even as our fiscal situation improves.

Our friends here in Estonia are also Smart Power players.  Estonia, since regaining its independence 20 years ago has been a Smart Power nation.  The rewards for the country and its people have been remarkable, making Estonia today one of the most economically and politically stable and future-oriented places in the world.  And here too, sustainability of Smart Power policies will be tested as things get better, as prosperity and popular demand for public services grows, and as government’s ability to do more with more becomes possible.

In the United States and in Estonia, we should look forward to that happy dilemma, but remain unalterably committed to Smart Power.

Building Excellent Cyber Security

Tomorrow,  November 17, the flags of the United States and Poland will be raised  during a formal ceremony at the NATO Cyber Center of Excellence in Tallinn, Estonia.  Our Estonian allies established the Center in 2004.  It’s mission is to “enhance the capability, cooperation, and information sharing  among NATO, NATO nations, and partners in cyber defense.”  The U.S. has had staff at the Center since 2007  and we are very active at home, in the Alliance, and internationally on cyber security.  Now we are finally saying count us in officially as full members!  

President Obama’s International Strategy for Cyberspace declares that we will seek to ensure as many stakeholders as possible are included in our vision of cyberspace.  That vision calls for an open, interoperable, secure, and reliable information and communications infrastructure that supports international trade and commerce, strengthens international security, and fosters free expression and innovation.  That is why we are joining the NATO Cyber Center in Tallinn.

I was introduced to Estonia’s NATO Cyber Center shortly after my arrival in Tallinn as U.S. Ambassador in 2009 and I have ever since admired the Center’s work, including it’s impressive annual conferences on cyber conflict.  Estonia’s standing as a cyber-savvy nation is firmly established internationally and the NATO Cyber Center contributes to that reputation.  The cyber world is a rapidly evolving environment and threats to our cyber -based infrastructure, both public and private, as multiplying with equal of not greater speed.  With our new membership in the Tallinn Center we look forward to working with all the current and also future members, in fact with all NATO member countries, to increase cyber awareness and to create the secure cyber environment outlined in the U.S. cyberspace strategy.  We expect to join our Estonian allies in leading the Center and to enhancing the public profile of the Center’s work and the collaboration between private sector and Alliance efforts.

When the Polish and U.S. flags are raised on November 17,  look also for the curtain to rise on the next chapter of an important collective asset of the NATO Alliance.

State of the Art U.S. Travel Security System for Estonia

A senior Estonian official told me recently that when the newly re-independent country set out to modernize in the early 1990′s after years of occupation, Estonian leaders chose to leap toward the 21st century rather than “upgrading” to aging western technology.  Estonian schools received state of the art computers.  Internet networks went wireless, fiber optic and broadband.  Banking became electronic and Estonian e-government today is a model for the rest of Europe and beyond.

Now the Estonian Ministry of the Interior is testing the world’s most advanced travel security management system.  U.S. electronics giant Raytheon is running a year-long pilot program of its Portera Traveler Management System in Tallinn.  Tonight,  Raytheon representatives will introduce the joint program together with Estonia’s Interior Minister to a group of  guests at my home.   Portera is not only the most innovative system available today, its use also provides for strict data privacy protections standard in Europe and the United States.  Not surprisingly, Estonia will be the first country outside the United States to test and, if found acceptable, institute this system. 

Another leap ahead for Estonia and a huge jump in safety for the rapidly expanding number of travellers coming to and passing through this country.

Security And Safety Inside 21st Century Democracies

Tallinn experienced a security scare last week as an explosives carrying gunman threatened the staff of the Estonian Ministry of Defense.  With characteristic resolute competence, Estonian security forces ended the threat by shooting the gunman while ensuring that no innocent life was lost.  Other than the press, few people outside the capital of this peaceful and law abiding country were even aware of the dramatic and deadly event in the Ministry.  That’s both good, but also something to think about.  My family, my colleagues in our Embassy, and I are certainly enjoying the hospitality, the beauty, and the relative safety of this country.   I can’t imagine that Estonians loose a lot of sleep over the safety of their cities, towns and villages, or their homes and their families.  They have little reason to.  But as last week’s incident demonstrated, there is no such thing as “it can’t happen here.” 

In America and for Americans, as well as for many others, tragically, it has happened.  Not all that long ago, we would never have contemplated taking of our shoes off in an airport or walking through metal detectors to visit a museum.  Visiting an American Embassy was relatively easy not that long ago and and streets around our diplomatic missions were not closed off.   Tragic experience has changed all that.  We have allowed our lives to become far more complicated in exchange for greater security, not because we want to, but because we have to.  Over the years we have learned to make security precautions less intrusive and more rational.  We have also become more security conscious without being security obsessed.  In the end, we are more secure in a more dangerous world. 

The debate over how much security is enough and how much is excessive will never end in free and freedom-loving societies.  Especially when we are confronted with threats from within, rather than with outside agression, we are loath to relinguish yet another slice of physical and psychological freedom in exchange for greater protection.  We resent being shaken in the belief that our best protection are the just and democratic societies we have built.  However unsettling, the threats we face only reaffirm our most basic principles of personal liberty.  Gritting our teeth, we accept that total security is illusory and we adopt responsible management of  risks to our safety.  Depending on individual national experiences, democracies pass through these resentment and realization phases at their own pace — but inevitably arrive at similar conclusions.

Innovation and our Use of Technology

Since my arrival in Estonia nearly a year ago, I have made support for innovation in collaboration between my country and Estonia a signature theme.  I have visited long-established, as well as new, entrepreneurs to learn of their ideas and projects, their successes and their challenges.  From mobile law enforcement drug testing devices to new e-governance tools; from business management software to high-tech fabrics sewn into safety clothing articles; Estonia is an obvious partner for equally inventive Americans seeking to build better “mouse traps.”   Technology, by itself, tends to be neutral.  New things will be invented as long as humans walk the earth.  But what use we put technology to is anything but neutral.  We can use it well, or we can use it to devastating effect. 

In Estonia and in the United States information and communications technology and the use of cyber space are among the hottest fields of research and development.   A few weeks ago I spoke to an audience at Tallinn’s IT College about cyber security, including the cyber attack Estonia has had to suffer several years ago.  Today I wrote an op-ed about the recent highly dangerous and irresponsible breach of communications security of purported U.S. diplomatic reporting.  Unfortunately, modern technology has aided in this dispicable act.  Those responsible claim they seek to inform, but instead are causing serious harm to individuals and to a good nation, whose representatives are working hard around the world to keep its citizens and its friends — sometimes even its adversaries — safe.  Bottom line:  technology puts amazing new tools into our hands that can make our lives better, longer, more exciting, and to protect us from harm.  But in those same hands, technology can also be misused to hurt.  Harnessing innovations and technology only for doing good and defending ourselves effectively from their misuse still often illudes us.

Finishing What Al-Qaeda Started

Putting Al-Qaeda permanently out of business is one of the top anti-terrorist goals of the civilized world.  Returning control of the country of Afghanistan back to the Afghan people is part of meeting  that goal.  NATO allies and non-NATO partners continue to work tirelessly, often at great peril, on completing our mission in Afghanistan with an eye to a conditions-based process of withdrawal of international military forces.  Of course our respective publics are anxious to see that happen.  President Obama has made U.S. policy on Afghanistan very clear.  The leadership of our Estonian allies has been equally steadfast and categorical in its commitment to our common goal.  America’s solemn commemoration of the 9/11 this past weekend, and the twin tragedies of Estonian war-related deaths over a week ago, again highlighted the importance of a determined international community finishing what Al-Qaeda started … and finishing Al-Qaeda.

Abruka Island: Invasions and the Sanctity of Life

Letter from Estonian Writer Ülo Tuulik:  Part 2:

In 1935, my father came to this island to be a schoolteacher.  He spoke Finnish, Russian and German but also taught the local young people how to play bridge and chess.  In May 1936, (my brother) little Vaino fell ill.  Father and a local fisherman took a very small boat through a heavy storm to Kuressaare in order to fetch the doctor.  The doctor came to the harbor but said that he dared not get into so small of a boat in such stormy weather.  Father and the fisherman drove back.  Little Vaino died that night.

On the 23^rd of August 1939, the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact was signed in Moscow.  The secret protocol of this pact decided the fate of Estonian people for half a century.  We were victims of geopolitics.  In the autumn of the same year, the first Soviet Russian soldiers came to Estonia.  A garrison of 150 men was set up in Abruka.  Four officers lived in the village while the soldiers were in the barracks on the other side of the island.  In July 1941, German planes first appeared in the sky above Abruka.  A young Russian boy did not run straight back to the barracks, as he should have, but instead waited in the forest for the planes to leave.  The Commissar (military official) saw this as an act of cowardiss and lack of discipline.  An old fisherman of Abruka saw with his own eyes the boy getting shot in front of a line-up. He was buried so quickly and carelessly that his toes stuck out of the ground.  Before the Germans reached Abruka, all the Soviet officers fled.  The Russian soldiers were taken to concentration camps from where most did not make it back.  As we know, a human life is sacred.  So the people of Abruka buried the young Russian soldier, shot by the Commissar, in their village graveyard.  He was buried along with his spoon and aluminum mug.  Twenty years later, we erected a memorial stone to the unknown soldier.  All over the world there are burial places for unknown soldiers.  During the long years of Soviet reign I spoke to known communist officials and politicians and told them that here lies an unknown soldier who fell in the battle against the Germans.  He is no longer unknown, however, because we found his name in the archives, Aleksander Haritolov.  And if for the sake of truth and history you would also like to know the name of the man who shot — it is Pjotr Lukonin.

During World War II, the school in Abruka was closed and father went to teach for two years on Sorve Peninsular in Saaremaa.  In autumn of 1944, some of the toughest battles of World War II that took place on Estonian soil were fought there.

We, about 3,000 habitants, were taken to camps in Germany, Poland and Czechoslovakia.  Children and old folks were buried on foreign soil.  When we returned in 1945, our village was no longer on the map – it had been destroyed.  Father’s library of thousands of books had also burned down.  We were poor, no clothes, homeless and decided to return to Abruka.  Father once again began teaching the fishermen’s children and my sister Safme (sp?) became the head of the local library, a job she carried on for 58 years running.  This could also be added to the Guinness Book of World Records ….

Regarding U.S. Resolve and Capability

I was delighted to see a rather active set of responses to my recent piece on our Secretary of State’s return visit to Tallinn and to my on-line interview to the Delphi News Service.  There were both appreciative and sceptical comments about the U.S. military strength and our willingness to commit our power to our NATO allies, specifically Estonia.  To those who welcomed the return of Secretary Clinton to Estonia as a close friend and trusted ally, we appreciate your warm welcome in this country.  To those who expressed doubts about U.S. capacity or resolve in defending our interests and those of our allies, I would simply recall that throughout the more than 300-year history of my country, those who have underestimated our strength or our resolve, have consistently found themselves to be on the wrong side of history.

Working Toward a More Stable and Secure Afghanistan

On February 4th, I had the opportunity to meet with a group of four Afghan nationals, representing the Afghan NGO and independent media communities and enjoyed a spirited discussion on a broad range of issues of mutual concern. At the same time in Kabul, the U.S. Embassy’s Deputy Ambassador, Francis Ricciardone, was meeting with members of the Estonian Parliament’s Defense Committee, including Chairman Mati Raidma. In addition to the meeting with Deputy Ambassador Ricciardone, Raidma and his colleagues met with General Stanley McChrystal, Commander of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF).

These meetings demonstrate clearly the strong cooperation between the U.S. and Estonia to help build strong governmental institutions in Afghanistan. It is important that the international community, of which America and Estonia are two important members, continues to engage the Afghan people on the vital issues of good governance, freedom of speech and political responsibility.