16.01.2012
Author: Tomas Jermalavicius
The new US Department of Defence (DOD) strategic guidance (“Sustaining U.S. Global Leadership: Priorities for the 21st Century Defense”) has been widely interpreted as a formal beginning of the US strategic “retrenchment”. Exhausted by two wars and financial crisis, strained by national debt and stretched by its global commitments, America takes another look at its strategic ambitions and means to fulfil them. The result – downsizing, shifting of attention to Asia-Pacific, moving away from “two simultaneous major wars” posture — does not come as a great surprise or shock. These things have been in the making for quite some time.
Loe edasi
postitas: RKK/ICDS blog
05.09.2011
Author: Tomas Jermalavicius
Technology and security always had a complicated relationship. On the one hand, we rely on technology – and increasingly so – to resolve many security and military challenges we face. Just think of the array of surveillance and detection technologies authorities deployed in response to a terrorist threat after 9/11 attacks, or employment of remotely operated aerial drones to strike targets deep in the lawless areas of Pakistan or Somalia where ‘putting the boots on the ground’ is not practical or feasible. ‘We look to technology to take care of our future — we hope in technology’, wrote Brian Arthur in his ‘The Nature of Technology’ (2009). On the other hand, technology itself can be a serious source of security risks, especially if it creates new vulnerabilities or empowers our adversaries. A dictum saying that today’s solutions are often at the root of tomorrow’s problems rings true in the realm of interaction between security and technology.
Loe edasi
postitas: RKK/ICDS blog
30.08.2011
Author: Tomas Jermalavicius
Such things happen, time and again, in the air forces of various countries. The “birdies” crash once in a while, no matter how reliable and well-maintained is the equipment, how good is the training or how experienced are the pilots. (Just ask the Finns about their pretty regular experience with losing their “Hornets”). A French “Mirage” and a Lithuanian “Albatros” apparently got a little too intimate during the routine training session near Šiauliai airbase in Lithuania and “kissed” each other mid-air. Tough love, “Albatros” down. Good luck though — no casualties at all.
Loe edasi
postitas: RKK/ICDS blog
13.01.2011
Author: Tomas Jermalavicius
On that night 20 years ago, I was just thirteen.
One tends to forget many things rather easily from such a tender age. But certain things – good, bad, or just trivial – get ingrained deeply in memory for the rest of your life.
And that night was one of those memorable things. It certainly was not trivial. Not good either.
It was fundamentally bad. Full of terror, disbelief, anxiety. But it was also filled with hope and resolve. It was a display of extraordinary resilience.
Loe edasi
postitas: RKK/ICDS blog
14.12.2010
Author: Tomas Jermalavicius
In the run-up to the national elections, Estonia’s political parties are on a look-out for new items for their agendas. Commendably, defence policy is not overlooked in the political debate. Equally commendably, parties are assuming positions congruent with their political ideologies: the liberals are advocating gradual transition to all-volunteer force format (often wrongly termed as “professional force”), while the conservatives are defending the “two-tier” format (or mix of full-time volunteers and conscripts) currently in place. Whatever the practical outcome of this debate, the Estonian society will benefit if this sensitive issue will have been discussed thoroughly and intelligently. The last thing you want to do is to imitate what others (Sweden, Germany, Lithuania etc.) do without understanding your own aims, needs and assumptions – this would be simply a counter-productive “strategic parroting”.
Loe edasi
postitas: RKK/ICDS blog
05.05.2010
Author: Tomas Jermalavicius
April 9th, 2010, Portovaya Bay in the Gulf of Finland: first meters of the underwater “Nord Stream” gas pipeline, which will directly connect gas sources in Russia with its lucrative markets in Western Europe, are laid to the sea bottom. April 21st, 2010, the Gulf of Mexico: “Deep Horizon” offshore oil-rig, leased by BP, explodes and sinks, opening uncontrolled stream of oil gushing into the sea and, by now, threatening to become one of the worst environmental disasters for the U.S. southern coast. Except of these two events taking place in the same month and being related to energy supply as well as happening at the sea, is there anything else in common between them?
Loe edasi
postitas: RKK/ICDS blog
12.04.2010
Author: Tomas Jermalavicius
It was Poland’s moment of 9/11. These were the words of one of close friends of the deceased Polish President Lech Kaczyński, describing personal reactions of many to the news of what will probably become known as the Second Katyń in the annals of Polish history. He is right. Not only the Poles received the brief first message with incredulity, disbelief and a slowly sinking realisation that this wasn’t a surreal episode from a bad Hollywood blockbuster, but a grim new day for the Polish nation. And everyone instantly recognized how cynical the human fate can be, given the context, destination and purpose of the President’s journey.
Loe edasi
postitas: RKK/ICDS blog
13.03.2010
Author: Tomas Jermalavicius
A couple of weeks ago a brief controversy errupted in the Estonian media over the proposals to raise military retirement age for military personnel of the Estonian Defence Forces to 65 years. The proposal came as part of the effort of the Estonian government to balance its books and prevent the deficits of the social welfare system from spinning out of control in the future. The same package envisaged increase of retirement age for the personnel of the police as well as emergency rescue services. In many other countries of the EU, the demographic trend of ageing population combined with too generous state-sponsored benefits for retired public servants have already put an unbearable strain on public finances. The predicament has been exacerbated by the current economic crisis, which utterly discredited the model of endless borrowing by governments to plug the expanding hole in their budgets as completely unsustainable. From Greece to Latvia, from Spain to Hungary, examples of where bad policies lead are abundant, and Estonia’s wish to avoid the same path is understandable.
Loe edasi
postitas: RKK/ICDS blog
28.01.2010
Autor: Tomas Jermalavicius
In the eyes of the outside observer, Estonia’s intelligence and security services maintain a rather low-key profile in country’s public affairs, as befits their secretive and subtle mission. They have had their share of bad publicity and embarrassment – Herman Simm’s treason as well as scandalous allegations of illicit wiretapping activities by military intelligence spring into mind. But all this is nothing compared to the storms that battered Lithuania’s main intelligence and security organisation, the State Security Department, or VSD, over the last few years. (Not to mention past scandals of varying degree that hit other Lithuanian security and intelligence services such as the anti-corruption agency STT or military intelligence and counterintelligence service AOTD).
Loe edasi
postitas: RKK/ICDS blog
15.10.2009
Autor: Tomas Jermalavicius
October 15th is a Blog Action Day’09 on Climate Change, whereby thousands of bloggers from around the world – concerned individuals as well as NGOs and corporations – join to discuss this issue and underline its importance to their readers in the bloggospace (www.blogactionday.org). Security and defence community is notably absent from this action, but it does not mean it is not preoccupied with the matter: climate change and its security implications are a prominent subject in academic papers, policy reviews, foresight exercises and various gatherings.
Loe edasi
postitas: RKK/ICDS blog
