'This Is How Deterrence Works' Against Russia

Estonia isn't waiting to see how the war in Ukraine ends. Instead, it's reorganizing daily life around the idea that Russia could one day look its way. The Wall Street Journal reports from Tartu, where city officials are running evacuation drills, planning shelters for 100,000 people, and even training kindergarten heads in crisis response. High schoolers are learning to fly drones, and NATO troops from the UK and France have rolled through eastern Estonia as part of large-scale exercises meant to signal that this small Baltic state wouldn't face Moscow alone.

Estonia already ranks among NATO's biggest defense spenders and aims to be forking over roughly 5.4% of its GDP by decade's end, funneling cash into air defenses, drones, and US-manufactured rocket systems instead of traditional armored vehicles. The country has opened a drone-training center, pored over lessons from Ukrainian battlefields, and folded volunteers from civilian jobs into a tech-savvy defense force. "This is how deterrence works," says Marek Kohv of the International Centre for Defence and Security, an Estonian think tank. "You have to always be ready to not be invaded by Russia. The more you are preparing, the more ready you are, the more Russia sees that there is no easy fight to win."

The broader subtext: Europe is bracing for a long-term Russian challenge as US commitment under President Trump looks less certain. Indeed, "Russia's official communication toward the Baltic States has become noticeably more intense, more systematic, and more threatening in recent years," notes the Baltic Sentinel. Sources tell Reuters that NATO plans to bolster infrastructure to ease quick troop deployment in both Estonia and neighboring Latvia if Russia ever does attack.