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«The fundamentals of Estonian foreign policy have not changed overnight»: A Conversation With Jonatan Vseviov

The French version is available on Grand Continent

Trump is now the president-elect of the United States. What is the mood in Estonia?

Calm. 

Is this a scenario you prepared for?

We always prepare for all scenarios. In a political system like the US, where there is a choice between two candidates, every ally has extensive relations with the political forces of both parties, whether they are in power or in opposition.

In this case, Trump has already been  president. We have had significant relations with his administration during his four years in office, and since the election was always going to be very close, we, like all other countries in the world, prepared as best as we could. 

What will this second mandate concretely mean for Estonia? 

The fundamentals of Estonian foreign policy have not changed overnight. 

Putin hasn’t changed his objectives. He’s still waging a war of aggression with the aim of controlling the whole of Ukraine and creating a buffer zone in Europe, pushing NATO’s military activities back to the pre-1997 borders, which makes this an existential issue for us. 

Secondly, the goals that we’ve had from the very beginning, to establish a lasting peace in Europe, which can only be based on the working principles of territorial integrity, sovereignty and the idea that the crime of aggression should not benefit the aggressor, have not changed.

What hasn’t changed either is that we must continue to raise the cost of aggression and support Ukraine, both with material assistance, civilian and military, and with political support on its path to NATO and EU membership.  

Nor has the need for a functioning, strong transatlantic alliance to achieve a just and lasting peace in Europe and to protect our interests in an increasingly turbulent world. But for this relationship to work, we need Europe that is more confident and able to stand on its own two feet, to manage its own affairs and to provide security in its own immediate neighbourhood. That was true even before the US election — we need to invest more in our defence than the agreed 2% minimum.

If we look at all these things that haven’t changed between yesterday and today, then Estonia’s focus and determination on the issues we’ve been working on for the past few years remain exactly the same.

If I were British, I would say keep calm and carry on. 

It is very likely that Member States will rush to the US to conclude bilateral security trade agreements. Is there a risk that this will undermine the necessary decision we need to take in Europe? 

Rushing to Washington is standard operating procedure for European governments. Four years ago we rushed over as soon as possible, although the situation was somewhat delayed by the Covid pandemic.

It is normal for countries to try to re-establish contacts with those who are coming in, while also maintaining contact with the current administration.

President Biden will be in office until January 20, which is still quite a long time. A lot can happen. 

Given Trump’s previous statements on Ukraine, do you think it would be possible to force Ukraine into a peace agreement where it would have to give up the territories currently occupied by Russia?

Our position has been clear since the beginning of the war: nothing about Ukraine without Ukraine. Nothing about Europe without Europe.

The parameters of peace after this war have a fundamental impact on the most essential parameters of European security. It is a vital interest for the EU, and obviously a vital interest for Ukraine.

The era of great powers partitioning continents over the heads of small countries is over. It must be over because we can’t achieve a just and lasting peace if we use the same recipe as Chamberlain and others used at Munich. 

For us, none of the fundamentals have changed. Nobody is going to force anybody to do anything. There will be a change in American foreign policy — elections have consequences. The policies of the Biden administration did not resemble the Trump presidency that preceded it, and the second Trump presidency will not resemble the Biden years. 

We are going to look at what the American priorities are and how they want to approach these fundamental issues. We will not base our positions on assumptions that people might have today, almost three months before the new president actually takes office. We will base them on the realities as they emerge.

Has Europe done as much as it should to help Ukraine? 

We have not done enough, and we have not done it fast enough, because the only measure in a war that matters is the outcome. As long as we haven’t convinced Putin to pull back into Russia, we can’t consider our policy a success.

Putin hasn’t changed. His original plan to take Kiev in a few weeks and then negotiate with other great powers from a position of strength hasn’t materialised, but he hasn’t changed his goals. To see our policy as a great success story would simply not be based on the facts.

If we look back, since February 2022, Europe has taken strong measures, but not decisive enough to allow Ukraine to win. What do you think of this kind of trade-off adopted by the Member States? 

The glass is half full and half empty. It’s not that we haven’t done important things. The way the European Union operates today is fundamentally different from what anyone could have imagined five years ago: we are providing lethal military assistance, we have adopted 14 different packages of sanctions, we have opened accession negotiations to the European Union, and I could go on with the list.

But the only metric that matters is whether or not we’ve been able to convince Russian troops to leave Ukraine. We have not. 

Why?

It is quite human to hope for the best and not to take the hard road before it is absolutely necessary. We tend to take any easy option before the hard one, as long as the issue doesn’t directly and immediately affect our own core interests.

Only when people understand that the cost of inaction will be even higher will they be willing to take action.

No reasonable person would voluntarily undergo an operation to remove their appendix unless they believed the doctor’s diagnosis that they would have an even worse outcome without the operation. The reason people voluntarily undergo difficult medical procedures is because they understand that the alternative is significantly worse, and they have confidence in the doctor’s expertise. 

This is where leadership comes in. The role of the leader is not only to make the right decisions, especially in democracies, but also to understand and explain what the alternative to action is.

This is where we need to get better at articulating clearly what is at stake, why a war that may seem geographically distant to some is of vital importance to us, Europeans, not just here today, but for tomorrow and the day after.

The reason why many countries in eastern and central Europe have been quicker and have a slightly better sense of urgency is not because of our geographical proximity to the war, but because the catastrophes of the 20th century are a more recent memory.

The post-war Europe based on the rule of law, democracy and common security under the umbrella of NATO and the European Union for the western part of Europe began to emerge immediately after the Second World War. There were several generations in those countries who enjoyed a European story that for us became possible after 1991 or 1994 (the year in which the Russians withdrew their military forces). The disastrous decisions taken at Munich in 1938 and the catastrophe of the Second World War affected Estonians directly until the early 1990s compared to those who were liberated in 1944 or 1945.

Does the US election result confirm Orban’s position on Ukraine?

Elections in one country do not validate positions in other countries. The only thing that ultimately validates positions is history.

If the US stops supporting Ukraine, do the Member States have the capacity to step in?

Estonia is on the side of those who see the situation with more urgency, both in terms of sanctions and military assistance, but also on the political track — we need to bring Ukraine closer to NATO and EU membership. We want to move faster. I think that overall our direction has been right. It is the pace that is a cause for concern.

It is obviously much easier to deal with major security issues in the world when Europe and the United States act together. That is true of the current war in Europe. It would be true of any situation in East Asia. Our preference is to continue to work with the United States. Fair burden-sharing is a keyword that will come back into fashion.

Our defence spending is about 3% of GDP. We will ask NATO allies to raise the current target of 2% to at least 2,5%, which is fair to those who have to live next to the source of danger and who already spend more. 

That’s our preference. But we have got to secure our vital interests no matter what the rest of the world looks like. So if that preference doesn’t materialise, we’ll see what we can do.

How much would it cost Europe to defend itself if the transatlantic alliance no longer worked? 

Far more than we are even arguing for today. But the same is true for every other allied country: defending your vital interests in a turbulent world without allies will be more costly than defending them with allies.

That goes for Europe, Canada, Turkey — and the United States

Can Europe increase its defence spendings 4-5% in the current fiscal context? 

Getting to 4-5% is a big leap, I think we will start with 2.5-3% as a new benchmark.

The only way to increase defence spending is either to reallocate resources within government or to reallocate resources within society. It is a question of priorities.

In a time of intense turbulence and crisis, the decades-old 2% benchmark is simply no longer valid. It was a good target in the 1990s and 2000s when the world looked stable and calm. Today we have a war on European soil. If we look around the world, I challenge anyone to point to a region that offers sources of comfort. 

A reordering of priorities will be the answer. It will be up to each government to decide how to do that. We spend 3% of our GDP on defence. If we can do it, so can others.

Is it possible for Europe to both increase defence spending and maintain its welfare state model? 

I’m absolutely convinced that if we lose the European security architecture, the welfare state will disappear. The easiest way to destroy a welfare state is to lose a war.

Could Trump’s re-election provide a wake up call moment for Europe? 

Every day is a new opportunity. If we Europeans still needed an excuse to wake up, let’s use the excuse of Trump’s victory. 

People have been arguing that the war in Ukraine was the wake-up call we needed, the first war of aggression aimed at territorial conquest on our continent since 1945. 

I’m wide awake. Most of the people I talk to seem to be awake too. The question is: how and what do we do now?

What should be the priorities for the next five years?

Our proposals are fairly straightforward. 

The list of challenges facing Europe is enormous — from managing relations in the Middle East, Asia and Africa with the rising global powers, to responding to global challenges ranging from climate change to international terrorism, to Russia being always at our doorstep. 

Defence spending should be at the top of the list. We need geopolitical ambition, understanding that the enlargement of NATO and the European Union is not only in the interest of the country that is about to join, but also in the geopolitical interest of building stability and security for the rest of us Europeans. This will require strategic unity.

Maintaining a close transatlantic relationship, including in terms of trade, must be a high priority, while ensuring that we are competitive in an increasingly competitive world. Europe is one of the richest regions, but that does not guarantee that it will still be so in 50 years’ time, in this age of technological revolution. We need to keep up with the pace and even go faster.

The bottom line is that the list of challenges is the same whether we succeed or fail in Ukraine. We will still have a relationship with Russia to manage. We will have a country, Ukraine, to rebuild.

If we succeed in Ukraine, we will face the rest of the challenges from a position of strength. If we fail and let Ukraine slip away, we will still face the same list of challenges, but from a position of weakness.

If the EU fails in Ukraine, what will be its relationship with Russia?

Extremely hostile and dangerous. Russia hasn’t changed its dual objective of gaining control over the whole of Ukraine. It sees  supremacy over Ukraine as geopolitically vital to its own image of Russia as an empire. 

Second, Moscow wants to push European security architecture back to its pre-1997 borders to create a buffer zone. A victorious Russia will not change its mind or become more modest.

The relationship would be extremely dangerous, not only in the traditional areas of competition, but also in the area of cyber and hybrid threats, with all kinds of interferences, for example in our elections. 

The Draghi Report makes the case for common financing at European level. Do you agree? 

The idea in the wider context of the Draghi report is a welcome one. It is the kind of thinking that we need: ambitious and bold. Whether or not we’ll be able to actually agree on every nuance of what he suggested is less important. The report makes us think big again, geopolitically, macro-economically. We need to build our self-confidence with regard to dealing with the rest of the world.

The European Union has imposed tariffs on Chinese electric cars, and it is likely that with Trump in the White House, EU policy towards China will be in the spotlight. Do you think Europe is ready to take a tougher stance on China?

Europe characterises China as a partner for cooperation, an economic competitor and a systemic rival. That’s the three pillars of our approach.

I think over time Europe has become more assertive and you could see that in European decisions, not only in the political area but also in its trade relations.

I am not sure that the right way to describe it is that we’ve become tougher. It’s that we’ve become more geopolitical on issues relating to the protection of our own interests in the world. EU´s tariffs on Chinese electric cars is just one example.

This naive expectation that everybody is going to play by the rules is no longer a feature, and that’s a good thing. It’s a sign that we wake up when others don’t play by the rules and we take steps to defend our own interests.

If the US becomes more ambiguous on Article 5, what should Europe do? 

I do not expect the US to become more ambiguous on collective defence.

But paradoxically what Europe needs to do in order to keep the Americans engaged in the transatlantic alliance are exactly the same things Europe would have to do if the Americans were to disengage — invest much more in our own defence, stand on our own two feet and be self-confident on the geopolitical arena.

I am not as concerned or nervous as some of the commentators are out there. Not because I don’t necessarily see the dangers lurking around every corner — the world is becoming more dangerous by the day and the war in Europe is still ongoing. We are in a very dangerous situation. The reason why I’m confident and calm is because the things we need to do are the things we need to do anyway.

My suggestion would be not to panic, not to hyperventilate, wake up and get to work.