LIVE FROM POSTIMEES ⟩ Martin Herem on the defence sector: It's not all a shambles

Why did you decide to accept this offer? You have about six to seven months to do something. What is the deeper meaning behind it?

Well, to start with, I was offered the position. My understanding, as it has been described to me, is that in the current situation, decision-making would likely slow down if I didn't accept it. And in my opinion, in the current security situation, we have absolutely no right to simply waste six months.

But what will you actually do differently than, for example, Hanno Pevkur would have done in six months?

That's already a poor description of the situation. Not differently, but perhaps in addition. I can't describe many things because I don't know which processes are currently underway there. I'm not familiar with these matters. I don't want to advertise myself in any way, claiming that I'll now start doing things completely differently. However, certain processes that are already in motion, initiated and approved by Hanno Pevkur or the Defence Forces, must be supported.

And perhaps in a pre-election situation and against the backdrop of certain scandals, the next minister of defence would be a bit more cautious. I, on the other hand, can be relatively free in these matters with the aim of developing defence capabilities during these six months.

Indrek Tarand wrote in an opinion piece for Delfi yesterday, linking your ultimatums to manifestations of a military junta. What do you think of this rather strong criticism?

What do I think of it? A nice piece of belles-lettres. People have the freedom of speech to think whatever they want. I'll overlook the rest.

One thing that I find unfair was what he also called a right to benefit – to suspect some sort of corruption or personal gain from my becoming the Minister of Defence is unfair. Everything else – well, we have freedom of speech.

Critics are saying that your coming directly from Frankenburg to the Ministry of Defence is actually a conflict of interest. Why isn't it?

I'm not just coming from Frankenburg. There are other companies from which I've received a salary for advising them. I am terminating or have already terminated all cooperation and contractual partnerships with all of them.

I have been a military advisor in these companies, no matter what the job titles were. The substance of it has been military advice: describing the military problem and the possibilities for their developments and products in that military environment. That has been my task.

Now, if someone sees a problem in this, of course, one can see anything. I say: first, I am terminating all contractual and financial relationships with these companies; second, I will follow the law; and third, to all relevant authorities – please come and check on this the entire time.

Another aspect of the criticism has been the ultimatums, including, for example, Kaimo Kuusk's departure from the post of permanent secretary. Talk about that a little. Were there ultimatums or not?

My understanding is that these demands for some special powers and I don't know what else – that is someone's mistaken conclusion. The dismissal of Permanent Secretary Kaimo Kuusk – the Prime Minister has summed it up very clearly: regardless of who is the Minister of Defence, he had to be dismissed. I have no further comment on that.

My only demand, which I ultimately phrased in a way that the Prime Minister might not even be able to fulfill, was that I could maintain a distance from party affiliation. Firstly, it cannot be a prerequisite that I join a party or a list of candidates. All that might happen later, but it cannot be a demand today.

And, well, that I would be as little as possible a representative of the policy of the Reform Party or the current coalition in a broad sense. Defence policy – absolutely, but that I don't have to start defending and articulating everything else. In summary, I admit and also told the Prime Minister that in the eyes of many people, no matter what I say here now, they will say: 'He is defending the Reform Party,' regardless of whether I'm talking about the issues or not.

Regarding Kaimo Kuusk, I'll ask a follow-up question from another angle: would you have liked it if he had remained in office?

I have the right not to comment on that.

But why not? The Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Defence is a very important position. This person is very important and will be important for you as well. If you now become the Minister of Defence, you have a responsibility to comment on it.

Actually, I don't have that responsibility. If someone thinks I do, then I think differently. Kaimo Kuusk is a person with his own loved ones. I think we could leave this topic alone. The government has made its decision. It would actually be foolish to start commenting on this decision in any way, whether it was good or bad.

And I don't want to start describing Kaimo Kuusk here in any way, because it would undoubtedly be read as criticism directed against him. I think we should put an end to this somewhere and move on with important matters.

Kaimo Kuusk himself said on "Esimene stuudio" that you have common goals, but different ways of solving them. Can you define in any way how your tactics and approach might differ more broadly compared to the previous leadership of the Ministry of Defence?

Well, I think he gave an interview a few days before that. I do encourage speeding up certain developments, doing them faster, and in the process, also talking about the military threat with various state agencies and companies.

Not that it will materialize tomorrow, but what it will be like when it does materialize at some point. And how to solve these things then, or what the mitigation measures would be. I don't think this is fearmongering in society. I think this needs to be done more than it is today. These are the differences that one could even read from the press.

Who could be the next permanent secretary? I'll put two names on the table – Kusti Salm or Veiko-Vello Palm.

Well, I've said that these people will not become the permanent secretary right now, at least according to my plans. However, I might use them in some other way and not tied to a specific position within the Ministry of Defence's area of government. The Ministry of Defence could probably procure, if we call it that, some knowledge from the outside, and they are one possibility. But I wouldn't put too much hope on that today. The fears can also be allayed, if anyone is very afraid of all this.

I won't ask for a name, but do you have an idea yourself already?

Of course, I do. But I haven't spoken with the potential candidates, and that's why I won't start talking about names.

But do you see other people in leadership positions with whom cooperation might not go smoothly?

I do not. I think a permanent secretary needs to be found. If possible, they should be found from within the area of government, or at least a person who knows this area, so that they can get off to a very fast start with me, according to my hopes.

Whether that start will be fast and successful towards the finish line, we will see. Other things are less important.

Let's jump to the topic of the threat assessment, which you already mentioned. What is the main problem? Do we not have an adequate picture of what is happening in Russia, or are we not interpreting or packaging it in a suitable way?

I can be very clear. Our threat assessment today, from our intelligence, the military intelligence of the Defence Forces, and the Foreign Intelligence Service, says that within one to three years after the war in Ukraine, Russia may achieve a military capability that would allow it to test NATO. Whatever the wording is, that timeline is there. I am not saying anything different from that.

If our allies' intelligence services name six months after the war, then I am not saying anything different from that. If a former high-ranking NATO admiral says that even during the war, within three years – meaning three years while it is fighting in Ukraine – Russia will achieve a capability that allows it to test NATO, then I am not saying anything else.

My goal is not to change the threat assessment, but to put the threat assessment down on paper in terms of time and volume, and then compare the curve of our developments against it. If it falls far below, then we are doing something wrong. We should think about why our developments do not correspond to it.

I emphasize again: not just in volume, that we buy a lot of artillery or drones. Will we have enough capabilities by that time? The question is not only about artillery, cartridges, and shells, but about the readiness of the state as a whole. And that is what we are comparing.

Now, I don't intend to look so much at how the Defence Forces do it, but the Minister of Defence is still a member of the government. We should look at the entire country. I feel that this should be done more today, because the Ministry of Defence is the only institution that knows how and must talk about the threats associated with war and possible solutions very specifically, in numbers and everything else.

If I go back to those demands and conditions where I asked for support so that we could talk about these topics, without anyone thinking that this guy is just promoting the Ministry of Defence here or I don't know what, creating war-scare. In my opinion, we just need to talk about things: first about the threats, then about possible solutions, and then move forward.

But isn't the problem with these different time definitions and predictions that we don't actually know when the war in Ukraine will end? In other words, it seems that actions have been based on the assumption that it will take several more years.

My understanding is that, in fact, no such comparison has been made at all. I see it in the rhetoric of politicians today, where we all say that Russia is a threat. And then the next moment, they say Herem is rushing. So where is your timeline, people? Then say it's six months or three years.

If I rely on the state's intelligence assessments, if this is not correct, then create a new timeline. I'm saying it hasn't even been done. We are developing certain capabilities somewhat independently of comparing them against the threat in terms of time. In terms of volume, yes, all correct, but in terms of time, perhaps not.

An example of this is our procurement of (Turkish) armored vehicles. We had the option to procure armored vehicles from closer allies. We theoretically had the option to produce these armored vehicles with a company in Estonia and keep a lot of money in Estonia. But in my assessment, these options do not correspond to the timeline of the threat materializing.

When we did the procurement that we did, we received the armored vehicles within two years. Over two hundred of them. Today, two battalions and a few other units have already learned to operate with these machines. And of course, this is one of those painful decisions and perhaps a rush, because it seems there is no war today. But if we had made a different procurement, we would not have these machines in our hands yet.

More money would have remained in the Estonian economy, but those machines would have arrived in a couple of years from now, and only then could all those units have been trained at full strength. Well, theoretically, you can train a whole battalion with two machines in turns, but that doesn't yield very good results.

Here, a broader discussion has actually arisen around the five percent defence spending. Does such a quickly made decision mean that we might not be able to implement it? We actually have plans in place: NATO capability targets, the military advice of the Commander of the Defence Forces, where there are always more wishes than resources.

If you just take the understanding of the current, previous, and the one before that Commander of the Defence Forces on how to build military national defence, then that five percent would have neatly fulfilled all their plans.

Technology evolves, situations evolve a bit, industries can produce what they can. Some things will be on the market tomorrow and are almost ready, and then we wait for the next things. And all this can, in turn, affect the content of that five percent. Today, we might want certain things, but we simply can't procure that many of them. Then all of it has to be changed again.

That five percent should actually be specified in more detail. Correction: I don't really know exactly what is written in there today. The national defence development plan is also currently in the works, so that should confirm what we want to procure. But these procurements and that five percent must also be compared against this possibly materializing threat in its own time and volume.

Is a good example of this perhaps the Navy's new ships? In the war in Ukraine, the focus of naval warfare in the Black Sea has actually shifted to sea drones.

I have now sensed this opinion that Herem and I don't know who else, if he somehow gets into the decision-making process, then all the ships will disappear. No, the Ukrainians also need ships, ships are needed. We should rather look at how, in the event of a crisis and war in the Baltic Sea, we create a situation where it is our strategic depth, not a way to cut us off.

And also in this situation, when we're talking about drones and everything else, well, if we are so good that unmanned systems – and for all I care, they can be 90-meter ships – can perform sea rescue, combat pollution, and everything else, well, then let them be unmanned.

But we undoubtedly need some kind of vessels, not just five or ten-meter ones, which are basically torpedoes. We definitely won't manage with just those.

As a new politician, when you look at it, isn't setting an abstract number like this five percent actually dangerous in the sense that we might end up in a situation where we start buying junk just to spend the money by the end of the year?

That risk has been mitigated, not eliminated, but mitigated by the fact that we have smart people in the Ministry of Defence's area of government who won't just go and spend money. The risk exists, of course. On the other hand, how else can you draw attention to your position if you don't deal with it yourself? Estonia's five percent definitely supports the speeches our politicians make abroad. There is no other way.

When the Estonian state decided in January 2022 to procure ammunition for 300 million, in March I think for about 400 million euros' worth of air defence, communications, intelligence, anti-tank, and artillery, and finally, I think at the end of the year there was another decision, I think it was for 400 million or something like that, for medium-range air defence, then that somewhat vanished against the backdrop of the war in Ukraine.

However, it gave great weight to our words when we spoke with our allies about our threats. If you yourself are not afraid and you don't act, then there's no point in them making a move either. So, in that respect, five percent is also extremely significant in foreign policy. There's no question about it.

But have we learned enough lessons from the war in Ukraine, for example, have we made sufficient procurements and preparations regarding drones?

I will be able to see that very soon. However, everything that we see in public is a bit distorted. We are shown the successes and achievements of drone warfare. We don't see the whole picture, and an ordinary citizen doesn't need to know all the data.

I'll just give an example. Russia uses around 10,000 small drones in Ukraine every day. Ten thousand drones. And that's on a front line of about 800 kilometers. Of these, at best 3,000 and at worst 500 reach a target. Of those, in turn, at best a third destroy the target, the rest either damage it or the outcome is unknown.

Now, if we look at this large mass and see what they are used for, at some point they do strike with mass, but they are not always the most effective.

What are drones used for? To perform certain combat functions. We can buy a bunch of small drones for ourselves, but what we actually need are reconnaissance drones. We can buy a bunch of reconnaissance drones, but we actually want to transport something with them. These things must be clear, and this can be found out not just by going to Ukraine and asking, but by collecting data for the bigger picture. And in this respect, I dare say that we have not fallen very far behind, although the picture may seem somewhat bleak.

I would now like to talk about the scandal that has shaken the defence sector. There are two sides to it. One concerns the Indian-Italian company, the other concerns how the Defence Forces' assets are accounted for. How have you viewed all of this? Is it exaggerated, or is it a really big mess?

Well, first of all, it's a big mess, of course. It is a big mess, no question about it. But all this should not label the Ministry of Defence's area or military national defence as a whole, suggesting that everything is a shambles, as they say. Not everything is a shambles.

We have a shortfall in complying with the rules of warehouse accounting, not in the warehouse accounting itself, not in storing things in the warehouse, but in complying with the rules, and that needs to be fixed, because it is also actually related to wartime command. You need to know how many shells are on one front and how many shells are on another front, in order to send more there at the right time or to do some other redistribution. This is very important. We have to see how to fix it. Now, regarding the procurement of shells. The prosecutor's office is investigating, let them investigate. If a culprit is found, they must be punished. The truth must come out.

But one must take into account: these decisions were not made by incompetent people at the time. The people who made these decisions saw the situation Ukraine was in, and that there were resources from various countries, the European Union, to help them, and the means were also there – they could be brought from somewhere – and nobody was dealing with it simply because it might fail. And at the same time, people were dying in Ukraine.

So in 2022, 2023, and 2024, I have definitely been the one who encouraged giving such support and also taking risks, but the risks in their specific detail have been for the relevant officials to weigh and decide. And here I must admit: I do not know these details.

Back when you were the Commander of the Defence Forces and the reports from the National Audit Office had not yet been published, were you aware that the warehouse accounting practices of the Defence Forces might be something that those looking from the outside wouldn't like?

Reports from the National Audit Office with reprimands can certainly be found from ten years ago. The reprimands have been different in different years. They also describe whether some things have improved. They are quite substantive, they show what the problems are.

Today, I haven't even compared the ones from my time and the present very much, but I see there are differences. And I admit that, for example, I dealt with the codification of materials separately and not very successfully. It was still a very arduous job, meaning every item must have a code for how it is in the warehouse. It's quite complicated, but it was all improving.

Now in 2024, the rules were changed a bit, which made the whole warehouse issue even more complicated, and I don't know if any additional issues have arisen from that. So I recommend calmly taking the National Audit Office reports from over the years and looking at them. No one has ever been clean there. Each subsequent report also describes whether previous mistakes have been corrected. You might even read a success story from them. I can't comment on it further.

From what you're saying, it still seems that you don't quite agree with Andrus Merilo, who thinks that soldiers shouldn't be dealing with accounting. At the same time, you also say that we should act faster. Is it possible to be both fast and good at the same time?

Firstly, I definitely don't want to pit myself against General Merilo. I think there is common ground there, and Merilo didn't justify any of it, but rather explained the situation.

Today, it is indeed the case that, to my knowledge – and I think General Karus wrote about this – many stocktakings have been initiated, which in my opinion don't help the situation much, because stocktakings have been done all the time. Things have been counted all the time, they are just not in the corresponding information system where they can be accessed very quickly. And this, in turn, creates a situation where it is possible for things to disappear, be stolen, spoil – whatever – without our knowledge.

Can things be done quickly and well? Whenever you rush, there is a risk and a very high probability that something will also go wrong. We now have to weigh it ourselves. Our laws, and this is not a criticism, have developed in such a way that we try to prevent terrorism, espionage, and corruption. Today, alongside these three, we have the military threat from Russia. We have to look at whether at some point, a situation might arise on this threat line where we have ruled out all the first three, but are not ready to receive Russia. A balance must be found there, and then the risks we create by changing some rules must be mitigated by other means.

Does it seem to you that the Defence Forces are mentally and administratively ready for the impact of five percent defence spending and for the broader threat from Russia in general?

Well, I think they are. Otherwise, all these people – and I'm not talking about the entire Defence Forces – wouldn't have joined the Defence Forces.

Undoubtedly, there are people there too - there were in my time as well - who feel very good and important in uniform and are not very interested in the real purpose. But the majority still see their purpose as national defence, or at least service in it.

We talked about this five percent earlier. Regarding the people working in the defence sector, it has been said how, for example, employees of the ECDI have done more work in one year than in several previous years. Are people too tired? Has this five percent been invested too much in hardware, not in people?

I don't know exactly how that five percent has been or is being divided, but this fatigue doesn't come from the five percent. These activities are not happening because the money has to be spent, but because we have a threat. If we want to mitigate this threat, we have to put resources into it. This is not just money, but also people, their knowledge, time. And here I have no complaint that the state has decided to be better prepared.

All those people who are there - if their heart is in it, they understand what the goal is, then there aren't really any other options.

I'll give an example. An Israeli reserve battalion commander, a reservist - I don't know what his real job is, a carpenter or a pilot, a bank clerk. A few years ago, he was asked how many days a year he deals with his battalion. The answer was 120. When do you see your family then? Rarely. But these 120 days are so that I can see my family at all.

And probably right now, the dedication of our Ministry of Defence's area of government or other people must come from the same thing: if we don't do this, then there are four factors - one is that the war in Ukraine stalls; Russia has enough resources and readiness to prepare for this aggression; the situation in the world is favorable. And the fourth factor is our own readiness. If it is not high enough, then upon the fulfillment of the first three, we simply say: please come and visit us. And for that, we have to make an effort.

This talk about investing in hardware and not in people is a bit unclear to me. A few years ago, the average salary in the Defence Forces was thirty percent higher than in other state agencies. We maintained that all the time. Today, other financial motivators have been devised, implemented, or applied. What people or what are we talking about then?

With heavy hardware, it's like this: when the war in Ukraine started and we gave howitzers to the Ukrainians, we brought infantrymen here to Estonia, people who were as clueless about artillery matters as I am now, and we trained them for 18 days. After that, they went to war with our howitzers, and a year later, over ninety percent of them were alive. The howitzers were eventually worn out.

That's why I think that if we start procuring howitzers or any kind of military equipment today, it will take over a year. We have a lot of reservists whom we can train to a satisfactory level, well, not in eighteen days, but for example, many more in three months.

So I don't know exactly what is being talked about when it's said that we have invested too much in hardware. Let's take that threat assessment that is valid today again. We can train people, but we cannot procure hardware that quickly.

And there is one more point. We will probably never have as many people as we need. And here we have to start changing some things. Just as in Ukraine, there is robotics in certain activities that are standard, where the waiting time is generally longer than the execution time, and where a robot can withstand environmental effects better or moves faster, carries more, then robots should be introduced - in water, air, on land.

And even if it seems very expensive – well, it's relative. Our defence forces should be called to service, meaning mobilized, before the outbreak of war, which in turn means that you or the carpenters, bank clerks, bus drivers, who are actually constantly producing our gross domestic product, will no longer be producing it.

And if we mobilize, take them to the trenches and they are there for two weeks and war doesn't start because of that, then our economy will take a terrible blow. Can we replace them with robots at certain points? And that is a topic in itself, but probably not for me to solve in the next six months.

Let's expand on the topic. In a weekend story, my colleague Ago Raudsepp asked, in the context of the Ida-Virumaa ammunition plant and the Baltic defence line, whether the Ukrainians would build a factory seventy kilometers from their border that doesn't produce suitable ammunition for them, and whether they would build ditches that don't hold back Russian tanks. What is your position on these two questions?

I haven't read that article, but let's start with the obstacles in the defence zone. With any obstacle, when we talk about engineering obstacles, the goal is not to stop the enemy, but to shape them into a target, to slow them down, to channel them somewhere and then destroy them with fire.

These ditches, which are being dug under the guidance of the Defence Forces, may seem poor or small, especially compared to the example of Ukraine, but I have no doubt that Estonian combat engineers know what we need.

Now, the ammunition plant. Again, this is a point of decision, that if it is very favorable to produce something in that location today in peacetime, for the next five, six, or ten years, even if you don't produce anything for Estonia, and this investment in Estonia brings money into the Estonian economy, then please do it.

In the event of war, we'll shut down that plant, move it somewhere further away. I can't imagine how complex all the equipment there is, or maybe a plant will be created that can continue to operate even during a war. I don't even know exactly which company you are talking about today.

But seventy kilometers is... Actually, it doesn't matter anymore, based on the example of the war in Ukraine, whether you are seventy kilometers or two hundred kilometers away. In that respect, there is not much difference in terms of threat. If it were closer than forty kilometers to the front line or the border, then there's a bit of a difference, but at seventy kilometers, I think, there's rather no big difference.

Yes, it was the Turkish company ARCA whose plant we're talking about, and for a while, there was a controversy over whether their calibers are suitable for the Defence Forces or not. But as a follow-up question: do you see that perhaps a shell factory could also be built underground in Estonia, so that it would be ready for war, for example, if something were to happen to the Suwałki corridor?

And everything I'm saying now comes even from the time when I was the Commander of the Defence Forces. It all seems very grand to have our own ammunition factory, but the company or state that starts producing it has to understand a few things.

One of them is how much Estonia will buy from that company. Estonia's quantities are generally so small that it might not make the company profitable at all. The question is, who will it sell to after that. Are Latvians dumber than us, or Lithuanians? And if it doesn't become profitable, then why the hell should it build this plant?

Now the state has to think about how to encourage it: what creation costs it will take upon itself and whether it is beneficial at all in the end. I am very far from deciding on that, at the moment I don't know.

But of course, it would be very grand if we had not only a factory but everything else underground. That would be very nice, but it would all definitely be much more expensive.

Just like our substations, for example – 330 kilovolts or smaller. Of course, the distribution network could be underground, it just becomes so costly that we would probably spend money on that and there would be nothing left for cartridges.