Last Thursday, the Riigikogu National Defense Committee approved the national defense report, the 240-page draft of which recently stirred significant controversy — not only because of its colloquial tone, but also due to its sweeping negative assessment of the Estonian Defense Forces' (EDF) leadership.

The draft report came under such intense public criticism that the committee temporarily backpedaled in public. Committee chair Kalev Stoicescu called the draft "a subjective broadside reflecting the authors' personal opinions" during a November 3 interview with "Aktuaalne kaamera." Another Eesti 200 member on the committee, Peeter Tali, had withdrawn from the report's working group, saying he could not support the attacks on former commanders of the Defense Forces.

Defense Minister Hanno Pevkur (Reform) also urged restraint, particularly when the critics are former senior defense officials "who were still working within the system when the decisions they now criticize were made."

The contributions of two former commanders, Martin Herem and Riho Terras, to national defense were presented in the draft report in a biased, one-sided and at times highly distorted way. The bias included presenting current Defense Forces Commander Andrus Merilo as an enlightened military leader, while [his predecessors] generals Herem and Terras were, at times, nearly demonized.

What the report fails to mention is that Andrus Merilo is implementing the military strategy developed under Martin Herem's leadership — one that Merilo himself supported as Herem's adviser. In challenging recent decisions wholesale, the report's authors are also calling into question the very foundations of the Defense Forces' current operations.

Let them challenge. Members of the Riigikogu are free to question anything — and they usually do — but recognition for such challenges must be earned through evidence and quality. Defense reports from the U.K. Parliament and the U.S. Congress set a certain standard and based on the draft, Estonia's version does not measure up.

At a minimum, lawmakers should not be spreading misinformation. If the shortened and approved final version of the report still contains falsehoods or unsubstantiated judgments, it is the media's role to expose these and to ask both the Riigikogu board and the political parties why they are participating in a disinformation campaign that undermines military defense — especially at a time when public confidence in national security is already fragile.

The report's authors have publicly accused the EDF before, saying that the commander no longer commands anything, that national defense leadership resembles tactical and administrative management rather than strategic direction, that there is no purposeful vision behind defense policy and that national defense plans have more in common with a sketch from "Kreisiraadio" than with a serious planning document. These were their words in a 2023 opinion piece published on ERR's portal. The current defense report relies on appeals to formal authority but is thin on substantive weight.

External, politically driven defense reports are not a new phenomenon in Estonia. Roughly a decade ago, the national defense field was marked by equally — if not more — intense tensions. We tend to forget that Estonia's defense debate has always been a heated one. In the 1990s, the dispute was over the feasibility of NATO membership. In the 2000s, it was about the future of conscription. In the 2010s, it centered on defense reform.

Around 2010, then-Defense Minister Jaak Aaviksoo also tried to defuse tensions by commissioning a report and convening a defense minister's advisory board that included some of the system's fiercest critics. "It was the time when the Defense Forces Organization Act was being developed and the Constitution was also being amended. There were opinions across the board," he recalled.

In Aaviksoo's view, external advisory boards and reports serve national defense best when driven by a clear vision from those commissioning them. "A report launched with hidden agendas can easily spiral out of control and do more harm than good," he has said. His report back then was intended as a political pressure valve during a time when the strategic visions diverged much more than they do now. For example, the Reform Party was seriously discussing a fully professional army.

Regarding the current report, Aaviksoo wrote on social media that "no one needed this kind of collective ego trip" and wondered "why the National Defense Committee failed to see through the dominance of personal and factional motives over national interests and allowed itself to become the report's midwife."

The authors themselves have emphasized the importance of civilian oversight. But a credible act of civilian oversight should include falsifiable, rebuttable claims backed by evidence. Instead, Meelis Kiili and his fellow contributors have engaged in what can best be described as civilian trolling. Civilian trolling reveals itself through sweeping, unsubstantiated judgments that are dressed up in rhetorical flourishes and peppered with lofty quotes from military thought leaders in an effort to lend credibility.

Well-founded, reasoned criticism of the Defense Forces, the Ministry of Defense and their leadership remains entirely welcome. The question is: who in Estonia is doing that in a systematic way? In some countries, such critique is carried out at the academic level by military academies. Estonia's International Center for Defense and Security (ICDS) focuses more on international security policy PR, which also serves a small country's interests.

If there is anything constructive to be taken from this latest report initiative, it is the vital importance of normalizing public criticism of how our political and military leaders conceptualize warfare. That makes it all the more unfortunate that the draft — steeped in animosity — undermined that very idea.

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