An Estonian expert has pointed out that at a time when the country is building more and more defense infrastructure, excessive secrecy and keeping the public in the dark can actually harm the country’s interests, writes the ERR News.
One example that shows how the security situation has changed in the past 20 years is the Estonian Armed Forces (EDF) radar station in Viirumaa.
In 2003, the Estonian President was among those who cut the ribbon at the opening of the Kellavere radar station in Läne-Võru County. However, this summer, when the surveillance radar in Vero was put into operation, not even a press release was issued.
The construction of military facilities is the responsibility of the Estonian Defense Procurement Center. Special procurement procedures are used for facilities that require greater secrecy. Only companies that have been granted permission to work with state secrets participate. Ando Voogma, a representative of the procurement center, pointed out that if the object is related to intelligence, surveillance or similar activities, it is not in the national interest to make more information public. “When it comes to general national defense security installations, we usually do not disclose excessive information, since we are dealing with a security matter.
One reason for this is that we do not want to make the enemy’s life too easy,”
Voogma said.
Meanwhile, communications expert Ilmar Raag believes that secrecy can sometimes have the opposite effect. He cited as an example the situation where a potential enemy sees an unnamed object on Google Maps, their first question is what this object is. The enemy goes to the location of the object and tries to obtain information from local residents, who tell him that they participated in the construction, but are not allowed to talk about it. The expert said: “In other words, saying nothing can actually make the site more visible. This is a kind of communications paradox.”
Estonian Defense Minister Hanno Pevkur said that information about military facilities located in public places should be available. He added that there are things that can be shown and things that cannot be shown: “And if something is being built somewhere, then the Defense Forces must have an answer as to what we are building and why we are building it. But perhaps we don’t need to disclose what exactly we are putting inside.”
Raag noted that it is especially important to inform those residents whose homes are in the area of influence of the weapons deployed at the defense facility. The expert said that it is not necessary to reveal the frequency range of the equipment or similar information, but residents need to know whether there will be any impact on their lives, because the locals will get the information over time anyway.
The question of whether and when the residents of the village of Vasknarva will be provided with information about the future communications and radar station there remains unanswered.
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