From Cody Zilhaver at The Strategy Bridge: https://thestrategybridge.org/the-br...ctural-realism

Introduction:

Russia’s power politics, demonstrated through its nationalistic tendencies, have the biggest influence on Estonia’s national security. Russia maintains a capability to influence a quarter of Estonia’s population who speak Russian, most of whom are disenfranchised by the government and are highly susceptible to Russian coercion through modern mainstream media emanating from Moscow. Due to these circumstances, Russia is in a position to cultivate Russian nationalism and influence Russian speakers in Estonia, who can elect leaders that will return Estonia back to Russia’s sphere of influence and undermine the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) alliance. An alternative view is that Estonia’s NATO membership provides enough security to dissuade Russia from exerting its influence in Estonia. In rebuttal, I offer that Russia’s potential to leverage Estonia’s democratic process to enact laws and policies sympathetic to Russia, renders Estonia’s membership in NATO irrelevant and incapable of mitigating this threat.
Highlights:

  • Estonia highly vulnerable to Russian dominance due to its proximity to Russia, its history as a former Russian/Soviet subject and its large Russophone minority that includes a large marginalized component.
  • Russia’s behavior in Georgia and Ukraine is exemplar of “structural offensive realism as described by Mearsheimer: “it makes good strategic sense for states to gain as much power as possible”.
  • Russia believes that consolidation of power is necessary to protect its territories from a surprise attack such as in 1941.
  • NATO competes directly with Russia for security through a structural realist system, described by Posen as the “anarchical condition of international politics”.
  • As Jervis explains, “a security dilemma exists when a state tries to increase its security by decreasing the security of others”.
  • Estonia is caught in the security struggle between Russia and NATO.
  • Russophones comprise 25% of the Estonian population, although 2/3 of these don’t speak Estonian. Only 1/3 have Estonian citizenship and speak Estonian, with the 2/3 divided between half who are citizens of Russia but not Estonia, and half who are stateless. These latter two groups are very open to influence by Russia and are able to participate to some extent in Estonia's democratic institutions.
  • Although NATO protects Estonia from the Russian military, Estonia is very susceptible to non-military measures such as using legitimate democratic political processes to advance Russian interests.