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.

Why Europe Still Matters

Having worked on the transatlantic relationship for many years of my diplomatic career, I am tempted to agree with Richard Hass’ provocative op-ed in the June 18 edition of the Washington Post “Why Europe No Longer Matters.”  And yet, I will resist that temptation.  Focussing mainly on Europe’s relevance to transatlantic security policy,  Haass made a powerful case, recalling Defense Secretary Gates’ recent  policy speech on the status of NATO.  Richard’s facts and analysis were, as one would expect, on the mark — as far as they went.  Europe clearly falls into a different corner of America’s security policy field of vision today than it did during most of the 20th century.   But NATO remains the most successful alliance in history and a bulwark of U.S. security, even if we sometimes look to coalitions of the willing, both inside and outside Alliance structures.  What Richard’s article did not fully address was the direct relevance of Europe’s security and its political and economic cohension to the United States, regardless of the security policy positions of some of our European friends.   America wants and needs a strong Europe, even if we invest much more in our common security than some.  

I agree that browbeating and cajoling are not the answer to different attitudes from ours among some Europeans.  Neither is ignoring these differences.  President Obama, in announcing our impending troop reductions in Afghanistan, has called for nation building at home in America.  Polls suggest that a majority of Americans agree with renewed focus and investment in our domestic well being.  The fact that our jobs and our prosperity are linked to our trading partners — not only in Asia, but also to our largest trading  partner, Europe, — can hardly be ignored.  Good jobs and fair trade are always welcome and always wanted by us, wherever they come from, and 40% of all world trade is between the U.S. and Europe.

U.S. and some European opinions and interests are likely to continue to diverge, although thinking back to past arguments over Cold War security issues, I would hardly call this a new phenomenon.  For us in the U.S., some of these differing views surprise and even irritate and we will say so.  That said, I would not characterize certain opinions in Europe as Europe’s opinion, especially as I see the broad agreement with our Estonian allies on the vast majority of issues here in this small northeastern corner of the continent.

So I arrive at some, but not all of Richard Hass’ conclusions.  Clearly there is no thought  of doing away with NATO.  And yes, Europe and transatlantic relations no longer uniquely dominate U.S. foreign policy.  That said, the U.S. must not “accept and adjust to” the absence of a strong and important Europe from our common set of regional and global responsibilities.  Europe matters not because of fading historical ties to us, but because it has significant human and material resources to bring to bear to meet the challenges of a shrinking globe.  For European prosperity and safety, stability in Europe alone is not enough.  If other parts if the world go to pot or meet success without European participation, Europe suffers.  In the end most of our friends on this side of the Atlantic will come to appreciate such consequences – and opportunities – without American browbeating.

Serious About Cyber Defense

I understand there is a bit of concern among some in Estonia regarding the country’s past, current and future performance in cyber defense.  There has also been some implication that Estonia may not have been nearly as prepared as it should have been when the 2007 large scale denial of service attack ocurred.  Some may even argue that Estonia talks the talk, but doesn’t walk the walk of cyber protection.  I disagree.  This country has done exceedingly well in dealing with a rather new threat that is now on many countries’ strategic planning agenda — after Estonia.  In 2007  Estonians not only overcame a unique challenge on their own, but they also learned a great deal and went about planning for future cyber security.  And with the establishment of the NATO Cyber Defense Center of Excellence and the creation of Estonia’s Cyber Defense League, our allies in Tallinn have done much more than just help themselves.  The U.S. will join the NATO Center this year to share even more in the common effort of  a growing number of Alliance countries to build the NATO cyber defense strategy agreed at the Lisbon NATO Foreign Minister’s meeting last November.  In addition, the strong relationship between Estonia’s National Guard and our Maryland National Guard is yielding solid bilateral results, among them the appreciation of the public-private sector community of purpose in protecting civilian as well as governmental infrastructure from cyber attack.  Now, do we all have more to learn and more actions to take?  Of course.  As information technology and its applications in our daily lives advance and change at lightening speed, so does the capacity of criminal actors to disrupt our societies using these tools.  But when it comes to hands-on cyber defense, both Estonia and the United States remain committed and capable of maintaining leadership roles.

A Turbulent 2010 Brings Success For U.S. and Estonia

An eventful year 2010 has marked and shaped my first year in Estonia.  Political, economic, environmental and other powerful influences have challenged U.S. and Estonian leaders.  The final tally is very positive.  America, with the help of friends like Estonia,  dealt successfully with environmental disaster in the Gulf of Mexico.  Our economy is recovering — too slowly in terms of our unemployment picture–but market trends are clearly up.  On the diplomatic front we ratified a landmark new strategic arms treaty with Russia that will improve security and transparency not just for us and Russia, but for Estonia and NATO as well.  In Tallinn and Lisbon we set the stage this year together for the Alliance in the 21st century.  Estonia and the U.S. actively exercised our combined military capabilities together, both on NATO territory and further afield.

Estonia is completing its turbocharged 20-year journey from re-independence to full European, transatlantic, and global integration tomorrow at midnight when Prime Minister Ansip holds in his hands that first Estonian euro.  Symbolic of so much more than just a new currency for the country, Estonia’s entry into the eurozone is even more significant because the euro has been through some difficult times this past year.  Estonia’s cooly responsible economic and financial policies are exactly what the euro needs today and, as usual, its government is ready to step up and carry the burdens as well as the benefits of a common European currency.  Estonia will begin 2011 on the best possible footing, economically, politically, militarily, and in every other way — to seize new opportunities and contribute to common efforts with its partners on both sides of the Atlantic.

For 2011, I am looking forward to building on the already excellent U.S.-Estonian with an eye not only to our strategic relationship, but also the people to people bonds.  We will work on U.S. companies bringing jobs to Estonia and for Estonian investments enhancing U.S. business activities.  We will keep pushing hard on U.S. digital content access for eager E-stonian consumers.  And we Americans will be active participants in an exciting Tallinn Cultural Capital of Europe 2011.

Hallie and I and my entire team at U.S. Embassy Tallinn are most grateful for our friendships here in Estonia and wish us all a great 2011 together!

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.

Estonia in Afghanistan Not About Loyalty To The U.S.

A recent editorial in the Estonian newspaper Õhtuleht questioned Estonia’s — and indirectly all of NATO’s  — engagement in Afghanistan.  The piece argued that Estonia was not contributing to world stability, but was instead inviting “Muslims to attack Estonia.”  Finally, Õhtuleht  cited a source stating that Estonia had already proven its loyalty to the U.S. and NATO and should stop “wasting money and bring Estonian troops home.”  This editorial got it wrong on some many levels that it is hard to know exactly where to start.

NATO’s engagement, with important Estonian contributions as an Alliance member, is making a major contribution to world stability.  This stability was shattered by the deadly attack on a NATO country, namely the United States, abetted by Taliban emanating from Afghan soil.  The Alliance is commited to seeking out and destroying radical extremists and to denying them future refuge among the long-suffering Afghan people.  Neither Estonia nor its other NATO allies are fighting “Muslims,” quite the contrary.  We are fighting together with Muslims and with more than 40 other nations and our Afghan friends to defeat terrorists who are perverting a proud faith to wage war on innocent people around the world.  

And finally, Estonia’s engagement in Afghanistan has nothing to do with loyalty toward the United States, NATO or anyone else other than one’s conscience.  This is a fight against indiscriminate murder of both Muslims and non-Muslims and a responsibility that a determined world community has taken up to prevent future bloodshed.  To disrespect the sacrifices of so many Estonians, some of whom have made the ultimate sacrifice, by discribing their bravery as a self-serving mission that has run its course is just wrong — on ALL levels.

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: Post-War Deportations And A Modern Tragedy

Letter from Estonian Writer Ülo Tuulik.  Part 3:

I spent a poor and unpretentious and yet wonderful childhood on this island.  The war was over, my family was alive, the sky was blue, the sea was filled with fish and we were surrounded by friendly neighbors.  The island did not have electricity, a telephone, nor even a single radio, a general store or a doctor, but we did not starve.  And, in the spring of 1945, when 20,000 Estonians were deported into Siberia, many neighboring families were saved by the break-up of sea ice – the Soviet Russian deporters did not dare to cross the thin ice.

In the summer of 1994, four young married couples, including both my daughters and their husbands, reserved tickets to go to Stockholm on the ship Estonia on 26^th of September 1994.  For different reasons, my daughters and one son-in-law could not go through with the trip.  Five young people, our neighbors and friends from many summers, young beautiful people in their prime went and never returned.  The three who survived erected this cross and made sure that the memory of what happened is never forgotten.

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 ….

Deep Roots on Estonia’s Abruka Island

A week ago, my wife and I had the rare privilege to visit an exceptional place and to meet some of its wonderful inhabitants:  Ülo Tuulik and his wife Mari, together with their grandson Alexander.  With the kind assistance of Governor Kasema, Mayor Tiidus of Kuresaare, and the Estonia Coast Guard , we were whisked off from Kuresaare to Abruka on an overcast morning and met pierside by our Abruka hosts.  Riding in an old trailer pulled by an even older Russian “jeep,”  we were treated to some poignant insights into life — and death — on a small island of people with big hearts.

Ülo gave me a few hand- written pages recounting some of his experieneces on the island, along with the permission to publish them in this blog.  I was greatly moved by this thoughtful and gentle man and his great eloquence and I am grateful for the opportunity to have met him and members of his family.  In so many ways, Ülo Tuulik, and his brother Jüri, who are both important Estonian writers, represent the soul of a country buffeted by greater and more powerful forces throughout history. They seem never to have lost their own faith and hope in the ultimate triumph of humanity, reflected in today’s reborn and reindependent Estonia. 

So, my next three blogs will be dedicated to the Tuulik family and Ülo’s notes which he handed to me on Abruka’s small cemetery at the gravesite of his parents and his little brother Vaino.  Thank you, Ülo Tuulik.