As recently as November, the Estonian army boasted of its invincibility. At the same time, the Estonians sneered at the armed forces of Latvia, supposedly fit only to "guard sacks of flour in the rear." The Latvian army was called "empty space" in these boastful reports.
In an article by Mikka Salu ("Postimees"), the armies of the two neighboring republics were compared in numbers. If in Estonia today there are 5,000-6,000 servicemen in the ranks, and in wartime 30-40 thousand can be armed, then in Latvia - 1, 7 thousand and 12 thousand, respectively. Estonian defense budget 2009-2010 - 565 million euros while the Latvians have only 370 million euros. And if the valiant Estonians, if necessary, begin to fight with machine guns, machine guns, mortars, artillery, air defense, anti-tank weapons and sit on armored personnel carriers (maybe even go), then the Latvian fighters will be able to move on foot, running or crawling with machine guns and machine guns. Some lucky ones will get rare mortars.
In this situation, the Estonians were seriously worried that in the event of an attack by some tyrant aggressor like Lukashenka, they themselves would have to defend their southern border: the Latvian army, that is, an “empty space”, would not help them.
Estonians wrote in the same newspaper Postimees:
“The Estonian and Latvian Defense Forces, which started from the same line twenty years ago, are now in a diametrically opposite position. The Latvian Defense Forces are completely unprepared to fight. They can neither defend their country nor cooperate internationally. Estonia's southern border is defenseless."
Spitting at their Baltic neighbor and praising their valiant army along the way - both quantitatively and qualitatively - the Estonians forgot to knock on wood and spit three times over their left shoulder.
And here you are.
Suddenly, the economic crisis hit Estonia with such ferocity that it was decided to almost cancel the army. In connection with the sharp impoverishment of the country, it is planned to abandon new helicopters, speed boats, a military town in Yagal, abolish a number of headquarters and cover four defense districts. Now, of course, Latvians will find something to answer to their Estonians.
It was also Mikku Sal who had to write an article about the drastic changes in the army of his native country. And where did the former euphoria go?
The program for the development of Estonia's military defense for the next ten years, recently presented to the parliamentary commission for national defense, provides for this and that, but first of all, the journalist writes with bitterness, it deals with cuts and cuts. Needless to say, if it is planned to abolish the headquarters of the Ground Forces, the headquarters of the Navy and the headquarters of the Air Force. At the same time, the new program will cancel four defense districts. The Estonian army will be forced to abandon the large supplies provided by the previous program. The military will not receive tanks, helicopters, or medium-range air defense missile systems. The fleet will be left without speed boats. Nobody (even Russian Tajiks at half price) will build a military town in Yagal.
What about the enemies in the person of Belarus and Russia? How can we now face the Minister of Defense of Latvia, Artis Pabriks, who recently managed to adequately respond to Estonian bragging rights? Sleep well, brothers-Estonians, - approximately in these words Artis Pabriks expressed confidence that the southern border of the Estonian state is safe.
And what about the enemies of Latvia, who can easily invade its territory through defenseless Estonia? With what, you ask, enemies? With the Finns, of course: after every St. Petersburg alcohol tour, they dream of annexing Estonia, so that later it would be more convenient to fight the Russians. Well, other fierce northern enemies may also appear, say, entrenched in Svalbard and in collusion with the Greenlandic Eskimos.
As for comrade Lukashenka, he, with the blessing of another comrade - Putin, will now intend to go through the entire Baltic region. The main thing here is to stop in time. Father will have breakfast in Vilnius, share lunch with a friend in Riga, and give dinner to the enemy in Tallinn.
As hardworking journalist Mikk Salu found out, the rejection of the previous plans of the Ministry of Defense seemed "abrupt" to the public because all the previous plans were … utopian.
“Until now, large-scale and utopian plans have been hatched, unsupported by anything. There was a void behind these utopias, which was covered with loud words about state secrets,”said one knowledgeable official.
Anonymous officials and deputies call the new program “reasonable”. They think it can even be done.
Two reasons are hidden behind the significant changes in the development of the defense forces, the journalist writes. One of them is money. The second is also a disgusting army leadership.
It turns out that in 2009 the country of Estonia rose to the very crest of economic growth. All countries in the world have fallen, but she has risen. Not otherwise, it was squeezed out, like a bubble, from the total mass plunged to the bottom. Tax revenues grew by more than 10 percent annually. In early 2009, Defense Minister Jaak Aaviksoo decided that 60 billion kroons (3.8 billion euros) should be spent on military needs. Another defense minister, Mart Laar, reported a year ago that the money had dropped by a billion euros (2.8 billion). The current minister, Urmas Reinsalu, is trying to continue the line set by Laar.
While the Estonians were arguing about whether they should make an atomic bomb, and were drawing up other utopian projects, a massive distribution of funds came from the state budget - to everyone who asked.
“Everyone who wanted something got something. The ground forces want something - fine, we will write it for you in the program. The Air Force wants it too - okay, you get it too. The navy is scratching under the door - well, what else is there, you, too, will fall."
In November, the brisk Salu wrote: the trouble for Latvia is that there is no conscript service in the army there - there are only professional soldiers, but in Estonia there are conscripts, reservists, and professional military personnel. The journalist did not forget to brag about how good his family is:
"At the same time, Estonia surpasses Latvia in all respects, both quantitatively and qualitatively, we have more soldiers and they are better trained, we also have more equipment and it is of better quality."
And what can these - pff - Latvian submachine gunners?
“The Latvian armed forces are, in fact, lightly armed infantrymen, which means the presence of assault rifles, machine guns and mortars. In Latvia, there are almost no armored vehicles, anti-tank equipment, artillery and air defense … Our warring soldiers move in armored vehicles, and Latvians run on foot."
But if you read into the fresh lines of the same author, already dedicated to the Estonian armed forces, you will immediately get the impression that he is talking about the same army:
“As a result, a lot was done and nothing. It is planned to acquire medium-range missiles, but during the exercises, half of the officers communicate with each other by mobile phones, since there are not enough communication systems.
There is talk of buying tanks, but hardly it comes to how, for example, in the event of a war breaking out to transfer the Viru Infantry Battalion to Sinimäe, everyone starts scratching their heads, but do we have vehicles for transporting it, and even if we do, then where are they located and where would we get fuel, and whether we have enough ammunition and cartridges for the third day of hostilities.
As a result, the armed forces of Estonia are impressive on paper and in their structure resemble the army of some large state, but in reality we are talking about a mass of men with extremely light weapons."
Daggers and bows must be.
How quickly "more soldiers and better trained" dropped to "a mass of men"!
What about quality technology? And here:
“The available artillery base is very insignificant, there are very few modern anti-tank forces, and the short-range air defense forces against helicopters and low-flying aircraft are completely insufficient.
At the same time, there is not even normal communication, transport …"
Etc.
“The realism of the new development program, at least in the eyes of its authors, should consist precisely in the fact that, before doing big things, first eliminate all those small shortcomings and gaps (in their totality they form one giant gap) that are now giving themselves know.
Obviously, what Mikk Salu described is considered "minor flaws" in Estonia. In short, the Estonians should rejoice if the Latvians, in the event of an attack by Lukashenka's troops or an offensive by the hordes of Greenlanders, take the bravest inhabitants of Tallinn to guard the flour wagons.
Mr. Salu remarks in passing that there were also "completely radical ideas" - for example, "the elimination of the Estonian naval forces." Fortunately, they were not included in the development program.
Well, Moscow was not built right away … Leading experts in the field of the world economy promise that the financial crisis will continue for at least ten years to come. It seems that the Baltic brothers from Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania have the same fate: the complete abolition of not only the intermediate headquarters, but the armed forces in general.
As for the atomic bomb, it is doubtful that leaders of such eastern toughness as Kim Jong-un (the male sex symbol of 2012, according to Onion magazine) and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (the main patron of the peaceful atom program in Iran and Kim Jong-un's secret ally).
In order not to embarrass his officers, who are running around the fields of exercises with cell phones in search of horse-drawn vehicles, the President of Estonia recently announced a new program of the Ministry of Defense, which cuts everything and everyone, “ambitious”.
On December 10, President Toomas Hendrik Ilves met with the Minister of Defense Urmas Reinsalu and the Commander of the Defense Forces, Brigadier General Riho Terras, who gave him, the Commander-in-Chief, a new program planned for 10 years ahead to be read to him. Reduce it in the first year, abandon it in the second year, and in the third year …
And this is what our favorite newspaper "Postimees" writes about it:
“The President expressed gratitude to the officials of the Ministry of Defense and officers of the General Staff for setting ambitious, but at the same time realistic, accurate, reasonable and feasible tasks.
“The conclusions and rationale presented by the Minister of Defense and the Commander of the Defense Forces were convincing. Estonia has a good, reality-based development program for the state defense,”Ilves said.
The nearest event of the new "ambitious" program will be the withdrawal of troops from Tallinn. All military units will be withdrawn from the capital of the republic. The deputies have kept secret the place of their new deployment. Probably, they fear the Russian Iskander and the plans of Comrade Putin, who, they say, was tortured by nostalgia for the USSR.
However, it is easy to guess: probably, Urmas Reinsalu and Artis Pabriks have already agreed on everything, and the Estonian soldiers are secretly moving south, closer to the border Latvian barns …
