Talking to Vikerraadio show "Välistund," Herem likened these officers, with their smooth talk and impressive tech, to characters in a famous Soviet animation, though a move away from this situation has followed Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

The long period of peace in Western Europe has created a perception that even junior officers behave more like diplomats than soldiers.

"As a result, I would venture to say an entire generation of officers grew up in Western countries who no longer loved fighting," Herem said, giving the example of the Soviet-era animated film "How Mushrooms Fought with Peas." In this 1977 film, all the characters looked good, used impressive tech and spoke in a highly intellectual manner, Herem noted.

What has been happening in Ukraine has also been a wake-up call to Western Europeans that military personnel will always need core skills, such as how to dig trenches; Russians place little value on the apparent diplomacy some Western military officers and others seem to exhibit, the general added.

Despite the much-heralded arrival of drone tech, the former EDF chief said little had changed in terms of tactics on the field since the early period of Estonian independence.

"What the Ukrainians are doing today – downing drones with small arms, is essentially the same thing we were taught in the 1990s versus helicopters: a squad or platoon fires its weapons skyward while someone observes and listens ahead of that," Herem said.

So according to Herem, the changes have introduced different technical solutions to warfare, but they have not changed the nature of warfare itself, including its logistical issues.

"There weren't sufficient artillery shells, so they came up with drones carrying some type of explosive that could be dropped on somebody's head. There wasn't sufficient intel – so they started using drones in reconnaissance and adopted the tech that is in everyday civilian use," Herem went on.

Any military innovation that there has been has simply been driven by the lack of traditional means, Herem said, and talk of the accelerated innovation cycle driven by the war in Ukraine now being well into its fifth year has become something of a cliché, but it is nonetheless true, and can be traced back at least as far as attempts to break the deadlock on the Western Front during World War One.

"The wars of the 20th century are full of this kind of adaptation dance," he said, citing examples such as tanks and poison gas; later on in the Vietnam War, the U.S. and the Soviet Union and its aligned nations similarly tried to compete, particularly in air defense innovation.

Herem also cast skepticism on another apparent unusual selling point of drones: Their supposedly cheap price. There are lots of hidden costs here even if an individual unit is not expensive, he noted. "They say a drone costing a few hundred euros can destroy a tank worth several million. In reality, you need a lot more drones, plus there are a great many people behind every single drone."

Much has been made of Russian bombing of civilian targets, seemingly at random. Again, Herem rejected this, arguing that Russia does not have the resources for such large-scale indiscriminate strikes on civilians. A more common event is drones and missiles straying off military targets and hitting civilians instead. This is not to say that Russia is not intentionally targeting civilians in a more concentrated form, however.

"Sometimes things miss and hit apartment buildings. Sometimes air defenses or some other factor during combat operations can cause something to fall on a residential building. And very often residential buildings, hospitals, schools and everything else are targeted deliberately," he said, explaining the aim of attempting to break the psychological backbone of civil society.

As for Estonia, while the state is allocating increasingly more money to its defense budget, it is struggling to effectively spend that funding – which Herem put down in part to a type of perfectionism.

"Countries often ask for something that – forgive me if I'm making it sound ridiculous – they've seen on television or even imagined. In other words, some kind of gadget that makes the sandwiches by morning, plays stereo radio, stands in front of the fridge but can repel tanks too," he said.

States should not be so selective, he added. The key quality in military equipment should be its availability.

As for another claim often appearing in the international media, that of Russia trying to take Narva, or the rest of Estonia and the other Baltic states, Herem played this down. "I think even people in Estonia, including the military personnel, are not entirely convinced that Russia could come after us."

Also appearing on "Välistund" was security expert Meelis Oidsalu. He noted the war in Ukraine has been a wake-up call which has also reached NATO's ears. Collective defense is being taken seriously there, for the first time since the Cold War.

The same goes for heightened defense spending. "Taking it more seriously requires several preconditions from the perspective of the defense industry, including simply funding the defense sector. Just a couple of years ago people were saying it belonged in the same category as prostitution and gambling," Oidsalu said.

While much has changed since then, Europe's defense industry remains too fragmented.

"Why do we need eight different self-propelled artillery models when perhaps three could be competing with each other?" he questioned.

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