The three saboteurs who set out to torch defense industry company Milrem Robotics on the night of August 15 were already sitting in Latvian police detention cells as suspects just a couple of days later. How was it possible to catch them so quickly? Perhaps cadets at the Estonian Academy of Security Sciences will hear the answer in a surveillance course — but even then, only 10 or more years from now.

The investigation is ongoing. We will determine whether the sabotage against Estonia was carried out in the interests of a state or organization and, if so, which one. But at this point, one's thoughts inevitably turn to Hando Runnel's poem "Jälle" ("Again"):

"Again the winds are howling, again the tempests roar.
Again from the east come herds of elk and bears."

Estonia's strength lies in its open society, democratic system of government and rule of law. Those strengths, however, can also present a window of opportunity to those who see our way of life as a thorn in their side.

Because of Estonia's geopolitical location, our internal security — and the country's overall security situation — is most strongly affected by external factors and developments, whether political, socioeconomic or technological, as well as by external threats, hostile foreign states and non-state organizations operating across borders.

Among hostile foreign states, Russia is the principal threat to European security, along with, indirectly, the regimes that support it. Other threats include violent extremist and terrorist groups, as well as international criminal organizations and networks. Each uses covert, nonmilitary methods to achieve its objectives, seeking to exploit the vulnerabilities of open societies and democratic ways of life — or the limited capabilities of security and law enforcement agencies.

The security of the state and society is threatened both by direct hostile activity and by harmful effects or external dependencies that materialize as a result of our own vulnerabilities.

If a hostile foreign state can gather intelligence on our territory without risk, influence our society or specific target groups and prepare positions that can be used to provoke a crisis or support a military operation, the conditions have been created for further escalation.

When strategic vulnerabilities are left unaddressed, the damaging effects on security can also emerge gradually and insidiously.

Depending on the specific risks and the area affected, the consequences may include damage to the state's internal sovereignty or to Estonia's status as a nation-state, the fragmentation of society, the spread of radicalization and violent extremism, growing anti-state attitudes among certain groups in society or deepening economic or energy dependence on high-risk countries. These are all threats that military defense capabilities can neither mitigate nor repel.

Russia carries out its nonmilitary hostile activities even before a crisis becomes perceptible or aggression becomes visible — in other words, during what we understand as peacetime. Damaging and weakening other countries and societies through nonmilitary and hybrid methods is part of Russia's foreign policy doctrine, with its aggressive intelligence and security services playing an integral role.

Russia's primary objective is not to seize territory, but to create a situation in which another country's ability to make decisions and resist has already been weakened before a crisis begins or in which that country has surrendered a significant part of its self-determination. A strong defense force alone is not enough to counter such a strategy. The state must also be capable of mitigating risks and detecting and preventing threatening activities at an early stage.

In short, ensuring national security requires both strategic risk mitigation and sufficient operational capabilities. The first of these involves reducing vulnerabilities in society and its institutions. This requires consistent policy measures with a broad, society-wide and nationwide impact that must also mitigate so-called creeping threats to our security and sovereignty.

A strategy for reducing vulnerabilities means assessing risks, developing policy and engaging society in ways that increase resilience to attacks of any kind, harmful influences on society and external dependencies.

Resilient societies are characterized by shared fundamental values, trust within the country, citizens' voluntary contributions and the ability to cope with and recover from different crises.

Examples of decisions aimed at reducing Estonia's vulnerabilities include the transition to Estonian-language education, visa restrictions and restrictions on real estate purchases by citizens of aggressor states, as well as the introduction of up-to-date continuity and security requirements for the country's vital services and digital service providers.

In the long term, many measures aimed at reducing the country's vulnerabilities directly support internal security and the principle of domestic peace enshrined in our Constitution.

The second prerequisite for maintaining security is the ability to detect and prevent hostile activity at any time, in both military and nonmilitary domains. This is where the strategic role of internal security begins: protecting the continued existence and functioning of the state.

The task of internal security agencies is to ensure that hostile states, their intelligence and security services or extremist groups cannot operate in Estonia in ways that threaten our constitutional order or the security of society as a whole. The primary responsibility for this rests with the Estonian Internal Security Service (ISS) and the Police and Border Guard Board (PPA).

Interior Ministry Secretary General Tarmo Miilits recently wrote about freedom, which resonates with those who can hear it. He rightly emphasized that the internal security services, which work around the clock to counter threats that have already reached Estonia, are the country's final line of defense for safety and security before the Defense Forces have to leave their training grounds and actually go into battle.

Counterintelligence, border security and migration monitoring and the prevention and disruption of hostile influence operations, terrorism and sabotage are proactive measures for ensuring national security. Their purpose is to respond effectively to offenses that have already been committed but, even more importantly, to detect and counter activities threatening Estonia's security before they develop into a broader crisis. Maintaining these capabilities, however, requires up-to-date legal powers, technological capabilities and sufficient resources.

These two main lines of action — reducing vulnerabilities and maintaining readiness to prevent or counter various attacks — complement one another and create an environment in which acting against Estonia becomes difficult, costly and ineffective for those who threaten us.

The Milrem Robotics sabotage case is a good illustration of why maintaining internal security requires a physical presence and the ability to respond at the scene, but also, of course, the capacity to collect, process and lawfully use information necessary for security purposes.

In today's digital societies, detecting and proving many such crimes increasingly depends on technological capabilities and the use of digital footprints. In its first internal security advisory submitted to the interior minister, the ISS described this as striking a balance between preventing threats and ensuring access to data.

"Security and law enforcement agencies must have effective tools to protect security in today's digital society and to detect and prove crimes that have been committed using digital evidence," the ISS wrote in its advisory. Of course, that means access to data, but it also means ensuring that the use of data and oversight are proportionate.

A legal framework that reflects the threats we face and enables action is a critical part of the capacity to ensure internal security. If the state can identify threats in time and respond to them, it can preserve public safety while also safeguarding people's freedoms and the functioning of the democratic system. A democratic state becomes stronger when it is able to prevent threats lawfully and proportionately.

Believe it or not, keeping the capabilities of Estonia's internal security agencies up to date is not a narrow institutional interest of the interior ministry, the ISS or the PPA, just as developing national defense is not a narrow institutional interest of the Ministry of Defense or the Defense Forces. All of this is a strategic investment in the continued existence of the Estonian state and in our sovereignty.

Like military national defense, the development of internal security capabilities requires stable and predictable funding. This makes it possible to pursue developments that meet contemporary requirements and reflect the current threat landscape, recruit highly capable people, provide continuous staff training, invest in forward-looking technologies and much more.

Military national defense and internal security are not competitors, but partners that complement one another. One prepares the country for a military crisis; the other helps do everything possible to prevent hostile activity within the country from escalating into a crisis. A strong defense force without robust internal security leaves an adversary free to act against us in areas where weapons are not used. Likewise, strengthening internal security alone is not enough without credible military deterrence and defense capabilities. Estonia needs both.

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