NATO Is Ready for Russia Tactics, Estonia Minister Says

NATO is prepared to counter non-conventional warfare used by Russia to annex Crimea, Estonian Defense Minister Sven Mikser said.

The North Atlantic Treaty Organizations 1949 founding treaty can be effectively used to counter new threats and doesnt need to be revised, Mikser said in an interview yesterday in the Estonian capital, Tallinn. The former Soviet republic, which shares a border with Russia and has a Russian-speaking minority, has full confidence in the accords article that commits members to collective defense.

There was an element of surprise that these little green men surfaced in Crimea, said Mikser, 40, referring to unidentified gunmen wearing military uniforms who seized key installations on the Black Sea peninsula before Russia annexed it from Ukraine. I think this kind of surprise can be effectively used only once. We, or anyone, will be prepared to respond to a scenario like this.

The U.S. and its allies accuse Russia of fomenting unrest in Ukraines easternmost regions. While President Vladimir Putin has refrained from direct military intervention, he has vowed to defend Russian speakers. NATO members with such minorities may not be prepared to counter new military threats from Russia based on events in Ukraine, according to Janis Berzins, head of the Center for Security and Strategic Research of the National Defence Academy of Latvia.

In the run-up to the March referendum that paved the way for Crimea switching hands, the Kremlin denied military involvement beyond its naval base on the peninsula. Even so, Putin last month said Russian troops had ensured the safety of the vote. NATO estimates that the country has 40,000 soldiers stationed near the Ukrainian border.

Estonias government is considering a package of measures to boost defense and security expenditures, Prime Minister Taavi Roivas said in parliament today. The country now spends about 2 percent of gross domestic product on its military.

The countrys military may lack rapid-reaction capabilities and needs to adjust to new threats based on evidence from the events in Crimea, Martin Hurt, deputy director of the International Center for Defense Studies in Tallinn, wrote in a report Apr. 17.

Russia has the ability to incite revolts and unrest on foreign soil while rapidly deploying military forces to aggravate and exploit the resultant political turmoil, Hurt wrote. This creates confusion in determining what countermeasures to resort to, leaving the country being attacked with minimal time to implement them.

Such new-generation warfare shows the need for a more comprehensive national-security strategy, Berzins of the Latvian defense academy wrote in a paper last month.

Estonia has already made such preparations, Riho Terras, the chief of the countrys armed forces, said at a conference in Tallinn on Apr. 26.

Originally posted here:

NATO Is Ready for Russia Tactics, Estonia Minister Says