Hanso: National defense legislation must be up to date

National defense legislation is under constant development and must stay up to date with international and domestic developments said Chairman of the National Defence Committee of the Riigikogu Hannes Hanso (SDE) in a speech on Friday.
"Aside from bigger barrels and artillery with a longer range, we also need to determine the legal environment," Hanso said in his opening remarks at a conference of the Estonian Reserve Officers Association. "What everything depends on is not just the country's size, but also what we are able to do with our experiences and know-how."
Recalling that the national defense development plan requires the numbers of both active personnel and those called up for conscript service annually to increase to 4,000, Hanso said that it was currently too easy to get a waiver from conscript service and that in order to avoid young people seeking a waiver, a more flexible approach must be adopted — one more centered on the individual and their needs and better taking into account their motivation.
Hanso also invited Estonia follow the example of Norway and Sweden in increasing the role of women in national defense.
According to the MP, a significant number of unanswered questions remain in national defense law, such as those concerning the cyber domain, requisitioning, job positions during a crisis, the information war and hybrid warfare.
With hybrid warfare, the question how allies understand it is legally a very complex one, Hanso noted, thus it is very important to set out the definition space of hybrid warfare in order to enable an unequivocal understanding of the basis upon which Article 5 would be invoked.
Editor: Aili Vahtla