WEBVTT

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So, here's a question nobody asks.

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What do you do when one of your oldest friends is Toomas Hendrik Ilves, the former president of Estonia, the European Union nation?

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I'll tell you what you do.

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You call him.

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A lot.

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My name's Andy Valvur.

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I'm a comedian, American-born, now living in Europe, because, well, if you could, wouldn't you?

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I grew up in the US, hearing stories from my parents about a country that didn't exist, at least not on any map you could buy because the Soviets had wiped it out.

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I only had one buddy who understood.

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Tomas.

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His parents were also Estonian, also refugees, and Toomas and I grew up sharing the same traditions, same weird Estonian Saturday school, and same conviction that America and Europe were family.

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And for most of our lives, they were.

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The alliance held until it didn't.

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Right now, the relationship that defined the free world for 80 years is coming apart.

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And Europe is scrambling to figure out who it is and what comes next.

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Toomas and I talk about this stuff.

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And it seems selfish to keep these conversations to myself.

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So here it is, the Continental Rift, with former Estonian President Toomas Hendrik Ilves and me, Andy Valvur.

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Serious politics, questionable hosts.

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Yeah.

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It's Thursday, the 20th of August.

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35 years ago tonight, at three minutes past 11, while Soviet tanks were rolling towards its TV tower, the parliament of a small occupied country voted itself back into existence.

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One person who watched and reported on those events, later becoming that country's president, is conveniently on this show.

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This week on the Continental Rift, dependency, real, unavoidable, or just toxic?

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That's the thread running through this episode.

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For 35 years, Europe has run on borrowed sovereignty.

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American tech, American finance, American protection.

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The lender has started calling in the loans, and it all began...

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with three days in August of 1991.

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Also this week, why Washington sent its NATO allies a questionnaire asking, in effect, do you love us?

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What happens when a reporter in Brussels tries to live for 72 hours without American technology and discovers that it's basically like living without any technology?

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And America put sanctions on the president of the International Criminal Court.

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Yes, America put sanctions on the criminal court.

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A judge from Japan whose offense is applying the law.

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Meanwhile, a U.S. aircraft carrier remains stuck at sea for nine months because Iran blew up its supply base, which raises an awkward question about who really needs whose real estate.

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I'm Andy Valvur, and with me is a man who watched those three days change everything before becoming foreign minister, and then two-time president, the former president of Estonia, Toomas Henrik Ilves.

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Hey, Toomas.

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Hi.

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Happy reestablishment of Independence Day.

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Yes.

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Yes.

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Reestablishment.

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It's a it's pretty special.

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I mean, I remember, you know, I mean, being an Estonian American, it was it was heady times.

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It was it was amazing stuff.

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I mean, my parents never thought they would live to see the day when Estonia was free again.

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Well, yeah, there were heady days to be independent.

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On the other hand, Estonia was incredibly poor backward.

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It had missed 50 years of development.

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So the past 35 years really has been devoted to catching up and getting ahead in some areas of much of the world.

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But nonetheless, it was a trying time because once you had your

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de facto independence, then the question is, now what?

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What do we do now?

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And where were you when this happened?

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Were you still in Munich?

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I was in Munich, but as soon as it happened, I flew in.

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You did?

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Yeah.

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As a reporter?

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Yeah, as a reporter.

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And then after that, since I was head of the service, then the...

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First democratically elected president started yelling at me, what the hell are you doing out there?

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Why don't you come here and do it yourself, too, or help us do it?

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So, yeah, that was how I made the switch.

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When I first visited you in Estonia back in 1997, and I looked at you and I said, you know, what can I do?

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And you looked at me and said, move here.

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It's exactly what you said.

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Move here.

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And I went, but I've got a career in New York and I'm doing things.

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But you very distinctly said, I should have listened to you.

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But, you know.

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Well, yeah.

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Woulda, shoulda, coulda.

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You shoulda, yeah.

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No, I know, I know.

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Anyway, let's move on to that, because we're going to talk more about the putsch and all that stuff in a minute.

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As I mentioned at the top, the United States sanctioned the president of the International Criminal Court

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for applying international law.

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Normally, when America wants a judge to stop applying the law, it appoints them to the Supreme Court.

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So, well, I think I almost got a smile out of you.

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Almost got a smile.

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Tomoko Akane, who is the Japanese head of the International Criminal Court, is wanted in Moscow,

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and sanctioned in Washington, DC, which is about as close as international law gets to a five-star review.

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Or being a European.

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Yeah, exactly.

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So what's the deal here?

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I mean, I saw Rubio talking about this.

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Why are we doing this?

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Well, we need to talk about how the ICC was created, which was in the aftermath of some of the horrible crimes against humanity in Bosnia and Rwanda.

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There was a need to actually establish a way of having international jurisdiction to prosecute these crimes.

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And in fact, the United States was instrumental in helping set it up, though it did not become a member.

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And they said, well, we're not going to really join that.

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We'll provide the clubhouse.

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But in any case, the ICC or International Criminal Court has has been responsible, actually, for convictions and sentences of

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real war criminals.

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So it's, I mean, it serves a real function.

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However, the United States is opposed to this.

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Well, first of all, because they have indicted people like Benjamin Netanyahu, which doesn't really appeal to the US.

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And there's an ongoing thing with some other people who are American.

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So the whole point of Americans' objection to this is they are worried that

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American military will be subject to external jurisdiction.

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For acts they've committed in whatever theater they're active in.

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But the outright hostility began with the return of President Trump.

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A man who does not like the court system.

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Well, he sues a lot.

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But when the U.S. sanctions someone, what that means is you cannot have access to anything that uses...

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American technology or uses American currency.

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So suddenly these people found themselves without Visa, without MasterCard, without a Google or an Apple account.

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I mean, suddenly you're just,

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Now this week they sanctioned the president of the ICC, a very respected Japanese jurist.

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And we'll see if this also amounts to the kind of cutoff to all access to any services that the US is dominant power in.

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The Europeans... Yeah, what did they say?

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President of the council, Antonio Acosta, together with von der Leyen, said they stand firmly with the president of the ICC, President Akane, whose judges, quote, must be able to act independently and without external pressure.

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Of course, on the other hand, Secretary of State...

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Marco Rubio, said that the ICC is a corrupt and fatally politicized supranational court.

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And the whole idea was to dismantle the ICC, which, like many other things, including the European Union, originally was a U.S. idea.

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Has the European Union ever...

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criticized the ICC?

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I can't think of anything off the top of my head.

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It hasn't.

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And then again, you always say that the European Union is wimpy.

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Well, one of the outcomes of wimpiness is that Europeans have not committed war crimes.

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You know, I don't think wimpy is the way we should.

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I prefer the term well-mannered.

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Yeah.

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Okay.

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Well, when Akane

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President Akane issued a arrest warrant for Vladimir Putin.

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Russia responded by opening a criminal case against her and placing her on its wanted list.

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So now she is, as you said, wanted in Moscow and sanctioned in Washington.

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which is kind of an index of where we are today.

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But when they did this previously to a judge, basically sentenced to what people call a civil death.

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That was, you don't have Microsoft Mail, Gmail, iCloud.

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You just switch the judge off and it's like, nope, nope.

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Which takes me to the next topic, and that is that a political reporter actually did this for a story.

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They went cold turkey on American technology for 72 hours.

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He gave up Apple, Google, WhatsApp, Visa, and MasterCard.

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And 12 hours later, he was declared missing.

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Well, yeah.

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Yeah, I mean, this is the digital era.

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So being a missing person, I mean, in my case, I get messages if I haven't tweeted in 12 hours and people say, are you okay?

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But it's true.

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I mean, everything you're saying, Europe's digital sovereignty strategy is currently stored on Microsoft's cloud.

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Okay, first of all, I'd say that the journalist is from Politico, give credit where credit is due.

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Absolutely, yeah.

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And the two events within just a couple of days of each, I mean, the story and then the sanctioning of the president, bring home the absolute fear of Europe these days, given the power of U.S. technology.

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And the kind of not quite predictable behavior of the United States these days.

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Yeah.

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I mean, what happens if the U.S. says, okay, we're angry at you, Europeans.

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Well, this came up already earlier when it comes to U.S. military technology, when President Trump said that, well, we'll sell you our stuff and you better buy our stuff.

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But if you do buy our stuff, we may turn down its quality so it's not as good for you.

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Well, you know, and there was a poll that said 74 percent of Europe's business leaders

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74% worry that a U.S. tech cutoff could disrupt their operations.

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Well, it probably would.

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There are not enough people worried about this.

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I mean, it should be 100%, frankly, because we are so reliant here in 2026.

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We could be basically shut, be shut down.

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Christine Lagarde, president of the European Central Bank, was already saying last year, and I think it was after the first sanctions of the ICC judges, that we cannot depend on Visa and MasterCard.

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We need our own digital payment services.

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And in fact, I mean, the European Central Bank or ECB is working on that.

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Now, there have been efforts on the part of the Europeans to set up their own Zoom or sort of that kind of thing.

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Nah, it's off to a slow start.

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Because people don't adopt it?

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They don't know about it?

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Or it just doesn't work as well?

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All three.

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All three.

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Yeah.

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And so there's that.

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Then there are, I mean, there's an attempt to get a Starlink version, a European Starlink up because that actually came about when Elon Musk shut off Starlink to the Ukrainians.

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And they, of course, are highly dependent upon Starlink.

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But we do see, but one more thing.

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Last week,

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The Turks finally sent all kinds of missiles of the Ukrainians, having received permission.

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Now, this is the crucial matter.

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You see all these over and over again in order for a country that has bought

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military equipment from the United States in order for it to give it away.

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Or if it contains any U.S. components, you have to get permission from the United States to send it there.

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Is that part of the fine print in a contractor?

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Well, it's known from the beginning.

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Okay.

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And this is why the Brits...

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Yes, exactly.

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This week, the Brits said they are giving to the Ukrainians missiles that do not have any U.S. components.

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So it's like, you know, what are you going to do?

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Well, this is where you are.

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And so there are two things that come out of it.

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First of all, it's not only the U.S., because there was this famous case four years ago when the Germans could not give a...

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a weapon to the Ukrainians because it had a Swiss component.

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And the Swiss at the time said, we don't give weapons to countries that are at war, which is like,

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Well, then what do you need the weapons for?

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But... We just store the money of the people that are at war.

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But the bigger issue that comes in here, of course, is that you have this complete, like, contradiction and sort of problem

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with the US and Europe on these issues.

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Because first of all, the United States has a domestic buy only American products.

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Okay, yeah, that's fine.

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Now the Europeans do this, you know, certain percentage of military purchases must be from Europeans.

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And the

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The U.S. ambassador in Brussels has gone ballistic on this.

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But at the same time, if the U.S. can turn it off, why?

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I mean, why wouldn't people say maybe we should do our own?

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And even the Brits who are nominally our best friends or the U.S.'s best friends.

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kind of said, no, enough already.

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And so what's happened now is that the Brits have prototypes of weapons that have no components from the United States.

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And they said they're going to give these to Ukraine, which immediately caused an avalanche of threats against the UK from the Russians.

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To sum up, basically...

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Today, sovereignty is very different from the way it was in the 19th and 20th, most of the 20th century.

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It's a stack.

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uh, payments, clouds, models, munitions.

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And we're finding out, uh, slowly, uh, but, uh, brutally, I would say that sovereignty is, uh, much more than saying, these are my borders.

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So Europe is learning that it can't trust U S technology.

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So the next question is, is can it still trust U S protection?

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Uh, because according to a scoop from Bloomberg, uh,

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The U.S. just sent its allies a sort of a loyalty test in writing.

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I mean, essentially, America turned NATO into a dating app.

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Do you support my wars?

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Will you let me use your place?

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Are you seeing other defense contractors?

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Are we going steady or not?

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Right, exactly.

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Can I get my ring back, please?

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Well, I mean, first of all, it was not sent through NATO.

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It was sent bilaterally by the United States.

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With such questions such as, has the country been publicly supportive of U.S. foreign policy?

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The U.S. initiative, in quotes, the initiative in the Middle East, that is the Iran War, the...

226
00:18:28.924 --> 00:18:43.488
seizing Maduro, which frankly, people in Europe have been looked at that and say, from, you know, well, in the case of Maduro, that's kind of like a violation of international law, but we'll be quiet.

227
00:18:44.668 --> 00:18:50.949
And in the case of Iran, basically, the U.S. did it without asking or telling anyone.

228
00:18:50.969 --> 00:18:57.611
They just went in, as we've said numerous times, and then got bashed for not being there already or something.

229
00:18:57.891 --> 00:18:59.152
We're doing that a lot these days.

230
00:18:59.753 --> 00:19:02.115
We're spending euros without letting the Europeans know.

231
00:19:02.375 --> 00:19:15.987
So to put this in context, the U.S. is undergoing a long announced, quote, force posture review for Europe.

232
00:19:16.650 --> 00:19:18.031
And we've talked about this before.

233
00:19:18.371 --> 00:19:20.352
How many troops do we want to keep there?

234
00:19:20.392 --> 00:19:22.352
What kind of armaments do we want?

235
00:19:22.392 --> 00:19:25.634
Does the U.S. want in Europe and so forth?

236
00:19:25.714 --> 00:19:27.254
It was begun last month.

237
00:19:28.965 --> 00:19:30.285
And it should be done by December.

238
00:19:30.326 --> 00:19:39.289
But in the context of a forced posture review, you've sent out this loyalty test to see what what each country is going to do.

239
00:19:39.409 --> 00:19:46.431
It's a way of, well, it's a strong arming Europe to have ideological

240
00:19:48.580 --> 00:19:54.005
alignment in exchange for protection from the United States.

241
00:19:55.406 --> 00:19:59.330
And that certainly is not what NATO has ever been about.

242
00:19:59.650 --> 00:20:01.592
This is how the mob works in Brooklyn.

243
00:20:01.832 --> 00:20:02.132
Yeah.

244
00:20:02.353 --> 00:20:03.594
We said that last week, too.

245
00:20:04.375 --> 00:20:05.776
This is more like in New Jersey.

246
00:20:09.339 --> 00:20:09.799
Okay.

247
00:20:10.080 --> 00:20:13.042
Brooklyn's a lot more sort of low-key these days.

248
00:20:13.102 --> 00:20:14.244
Everyone's sipping...

249
00:20:15.063 --> 00:20:15.623
Lattes.

250
00:20:15.743 --> 00:20:16.763
Lattes.

251
00:20:17.404 --> 00:20:19.184
The U.S. is just doing what they do.

252
00:20:19.224 --> 00:20:19.704
They don't care.

253
00:20:19.904 --> 00:20:21.965
I mean, look, look, bases are important.

254
00:20:22.045 --> 00:20:32.147
Look, I mean, the big glaring example right now is the USS President Abraham Lincoln, which is the carrier that cannot go back.

255
00:20:32.487 --> 00:20:35.328
It's been stuck at sea for 260 days.

256
00:20:35.548 --> 00:20:39.169
I mean, even Carnival Cruise lets you off at a certain point.

257
00:20:39.389 --> 00:20:42.049
Well, I mean, the problem is deeper, I think.

258
00:20:45.190 --> 00:20:50.513
quality of food, which is apparently very bad, the quality of living conditions.

259
00:20:50.533 --> 00:20:52.254
But they also blew up their base.

260
00:20:52.674 --> 00:20:54.755
The Iranians blew up the base.

261
00:20:55.295 --> 00:21:05.521
Well, it's turning into a domestic issue there because, you know, the soldiers are talking to or writing to their wives, girlfriends, mothers.

262
00:21:05.741 --> 00:21:05.981
Right.

263
00:21:06.601 --> 00:21:10.524
And so it's becoming kind of a hot button item there.

264
00:21:10.664 --> 00:21:11.064
I mean,

265
00:21:11.524 --> 00:21:19.970
Carriers already are a tough place to be because you're there with 5,000 other people cramped in this kind of metal sort of thing.

266
00:21:20.070 --> 00:21:23.993
And I guess, you know, people do get stir crazy.

267
00:21:24.093 --> 00:21:26.855
And this is certainly not a carnival cruise.

268
00:21:27.155 --> 00:21:34.100
So if American power projection into the Middle East depends on European and allied real estate,

269
00:21:34.700 --> 00:21:37.481
and Bahrain showed what happens without it.

270
00:21:38.261 --> 00:21:40.082
Will we ever see the flow reverse?

271
00:21:40.142 --> 00:21:43.583
I mean, European nations charging the US for access?

272
00:21:44.103 --> 00:21:45.264
No, I don't see that.

273
00:21:45.484 --> 00:21:52.206
I mean, at least not with this administration, basically, if anyone starts doing that- They'd go ballistic, wouldn't they?

274
00:21:52.226 --> 00:21:53.907
They say, okay, we leave, bye.

275
00:21:54.147 --> 00:21:55.887
That's it, that's boom, that's it.

276
00:21:56.188 --> 00:21:59.189
So I don't see that happening, but for 70 years,

277
00:22:00.569 --> 00:22:01.449
five years.

278
00:22:01.509 --> 00:22:04.550
It was a mutual understanding.

279
00:22:04.610 --> 00:22:07.731
Yeah, you use our bases, but you will protect us.

280
00:22:08.031 --> 00:22:12.553
This was certainly the case with the various wars that the US has engaged in.

281
00:22:12.573 --> 00:22:17.455
I mean, it was the first Gulf War, that everybody was there.

282
00:22:17.535 --> 00:22:21.156
Then it was Afghanistan and Iraq.

283
00:22:21.336 --> 00:22:24.877
Okay, France and Germany on Iraq were less helpful.

284
00:22:25.237 --> 00:22:27.518
But basically it was like, you know, you used,

285
00:22:28.278 --> 00:22:29.539
You need our bases.

286
00:22:29.859 --> 00:22:31.259
We pay for the bases.

287
00:22:31.719 --> 00:22:32.340
Go ahead.

288
00:22:33.680 --> 00:22:37.161
And that's kind of part of the understood deal.

289
00:22:37.381 --> 00:22:39.822
Let's move on to our main topic, which is the putsch.

290
00:22:40.022 --> 00:22:41.703
We are recording on the 20th of August.

291
00:22:42.343 --> 00:22:46.865
And 35 years ago to the day there was the putsch in Moscow.

292
00:22:47.305 --> 00:22:52.227
Now, for our younger listeners, Tomas, can you fill us in in what happened?

293
00:22:52.567 --> 00:23:01.691
1986, we got a new Communist Party's General Secretary, Mihal Gorbachev, who started with some slow reforms.

294
00:23:03.972 --> 00:23:12.276
And so you started getting people talking about things that had been, you couldn't talk about in the Soviet Union before.

295
00:23:12.737 --> 00:23:13.037
I mean,

296
00:23:14.277 --> 00:23:21.379
It got to the point where the Soviet Union was a good deal more liberal than Putin is today, who puts you in jail immediately.

297
00:23:21.399 --> 00:23:25.880
For a while there, if you use the word war, you would be put in jail.

298
00:23:25.900 --> 00:23:32.082
But right now, any criticism, it's either like jail, window, window.

299
00:23:34.083 --> 00:23:50.653
T T Or minimally getting fired Okay, so But what happened was then in 1989 You saw like the first The outer empire, Poland went And Czechoslovakia At the time went And

300
00:23:51.693 --> 00:23:55.954
East Germany went and people started getting a little worried about it.

301
00:23:56.214 --> 00:23:59.155
I mean, the communists started getting a little worried about where's this going.

302
00:23:59.195 --> 00:24:08.098
And then, but Gorbachev made firm and he continued to liberalize with things such as you could have little shops now.

303
00:24:09.378 --> 00:24:11.539
You could sell things in your little shop.

304
00:24:12.000 --> 00:24:18.783
And then hardliners, as it were, were really annoyed and they decided that enough of this.

305
00:24:19.304 --> 00:24:23.906
And so when Gorbachev in August of 1991 was on vacation.

306
00:24:24.206 --> 00:24:25.387
What were they annoyed about?

307
00:24:25.527 --> 00:24:29.469
I mean, what were they just thought this was this was destroying communism and they were.

308
00:24:30.603 --> 00:24:33.544
This is like the KGB, the military.

309
00:24:33.664 --> 00:24:36.664
I mean, they were just looking at this saying, you know, this is really bad news.

310
00:24:37.085 --> 00:24:38.285
We can't have people protesting.

311
00:24:38.305 --> 00:24:39.725
This is the road to hell, basically.

312
00:24:39.745 --> 00:24:39.925
Right.

313
00:24:40.765 --> 00:24:49.148
And so they locked him up in southern Russia and declared a coup and sent tanks into Russia.

314
00:24:51.168 --> 00:24:51.769
Moscow.

315
00:24:51.989 --> 00:24:58.916
And then parts of the zone, they were especially uppity, mainly Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, they sent in military.

316
00:24:58.976 --> 00:25:02.580
So then all these tanks poured into the three countries.

317
00:25:04.952 --> 00:25:11.774
And it was at that point that here in Estonia, we said, uh-uh, no, this is no putsch.

318
00:25:12.494 --> 00:25:19.635
So the Soviet army was trying to take over the TV tower, which is like classic Lenin, you know, get the communication centers.

319
00:25:20.235 --> 00:25:24.576
And there was like all these sort of struggles between Estonians and Russian troops.

320
00:25:25.377 --> 00:25:31.778
And then the parliament met, and the parliament, it was a Soviet-style parliament, they voted to...

321
00:25:32.636 --> 00:25:38.481
declare independence, which then everything followed from that.

322
00:25:39.722 --> 00:25:48.269
Boris Yeltsin recognized the independence of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, and it's gotten into a whole big mess in Moscow.

323
00:25:48.649 --> 00:25:49.650
We were already out of it.

324
00:25:51.391 --> 00:26:01.975
leading to Boris Yeltsin, who had been elected president of Russia in an equally weird parliament, but nonetheless he was president of Russia.

325
00:26:03.036 --> 00:26:11.859
And so he basically declared the Soviet Union over, finito, basta.

326
00:26:12.926 --> 00:26:21.150
And so on the 25th of December, Christmas Day, the Soviet Union just went poof.

327
00:26:21.850 --> 00:26:22.950
Just ceased to exist.

328
00:26:23.571 --> 00:26:26.652
Yes.

329
00:26:27.252 --> 00:26:36.216
And so which leads me to the next part of this all, which is we talked about there was this peace dividend, right?

330
00:26:36.236 --> 00:26:36.316
Yes.

331
00:26:36.854 --> 00:26:37.896
Yes.

332
00:26:37.956 --> 00:26:47.409
President Herbert Walker Bush, Bush senior, said, OK, the Cold War is over and now we don't have to spend all this money on defense.

333
00:26:47.729 --> 00:26:49.712
And this is the great peace dividend.

334
00:26:51.594 --> 00:26:52.596
And what that meant.

335
00:26:54.073 --> 00:26:58.815
Europe, was that everyone said, oh, okay, we're not going to spend that much money anymore.

336
00:27:00.395 --> 00:27:17.582
I mean, just to give you an example, the 1980s, Germany was spending 4% of its GDP on defense, which kind of made sense if you've got your country's divided in half on the other side of the border, like hundreds of thousands of Soviet troops.

337
00:27:19.548 --> 00:27:23.170
this fall across at least Western Europe said, okay, no more.

338
00:27:24.110 --> 00:27:32.114
We're not, we're going to put that money into social welfare, because we don't have to worry about, you know, communism.

339
00:27:33.335 --> 00:27:39.058
And there was this fundamental misunderstanding that I think has lasted to this day in some quarters.

340
00:27:40.178 --> 00:27:50.281
both in the US and in Europe that, well, no more communism means the default, the default condition is democracy.

341
00:27:50.421 --> 00:27:56.343
If you know your history of Europe, the 1930s, the fascists were not communists, but they were not democracies.

342
00:27:56.483 --> 00:28:04.325
And in fact, today we can see that Russia is a very capitalist country, yet it is hardly a democracy.

343
00:28:04.605 --> 00:28:07.586
So if the USSR had not collapsed,

344
00:28:09.233 --> 00:28:13.594
no one could complain about European defense spending, right?

345
00:28:14.255 --> 00:28:14.455
Right.

346
00:28:14.575 --> 00:28:15.715
This is the bizarre moment.

347
00:28:15.735 --> 00:28:18.976
This is especially tough if you're from one of the countries that was occupied.

348
00:28:19.596 --> 00:28:24.457
But I mean, in fact, the Europeans would continue to spend money on defense.

349
00:28:24.957 --> 00:28:28.118
But we, on the other hand, would continue to be occupied.

350
00:28:28.218 --> 00:28:29.499
So, you know.

351
00:28:29.859 --> 00:28:30.339
Tradeoffs.

352
00:28:31.196 --> 00:28:31.416
Yeah.

353
00:28:31.676 --> 00:28:31.957
All right.

354
00:28:32.037 --> 00:28:44.088
So basically, NATO's 2026 estimate, the top three spenders by share of GDP are Lithuania, Estonia, and Latvia.

355
00:28:44.268 --> 00:28:50.333
The three countries that never believed the peace dividend was permanent are the three paying the most.

356
00:28:51.114 --> 00:28:51.334
Right.

357
00:28:52.055 --> 00:28:54.197
Well, because the peace dividend...

358
00:28:55.465 --> 00:29:00.053
I mean, it always struck us as being kind of wishful thinking.

359
00:29:00.333 --> 00:29:09.267
When the 2% requirement was announced in 2011, when I was in office, that was one of my big things, constantly saying,

360
00:29:10.258 --> 00:29:12.199
finance minister, we need 2%.

361
00:29:13.099 --> 00:29:13.699
And they agreed.

362
00:29:13.779 --> 00:29:22.602
I mean, so I mean, now we're going to be hitting 5.3% in 2027, which is getting like really up there.

363
00:29:24.343 --> 00:29:27.584
But, you know, you're a frontline state.

364
00:29:27.724 --> 00:29:29.345
I mean, here you are bordering them.

365
00:29:29.505 --> 00:29:29.645
So

366
00:29:31.096 --> 00:29:31.636
What are you going to do?

367
00:29:31.797 --> 00:29:33.218
So the Soviet Union is gone.

368
00:29:34.359 --> 00:29:35.560
Communism is gone.

369
00:29:36.200 --> 00:29:40.504
But the game continues to this day, right?

370
00:29:40.844 --> 00:29:45.488
I mean, the GRU is doing all sorts of stuff everywhere.

371
00:29:46.109 --> 00:29:51.413
The most glaring example, there's a Le Carré novel called The Russia House, right?

372
00:29:52.562 --> 00:30:05.191
And it turns out that Berlin kept the film set because the Russian state cultural center on Friedrichstraße, which has been going since 1984.

373
00:30:07.093 --> 00:30:11.215
And according to French intelligence, it's not about ballet recitals.

374
00:30:11.296 --> 00:30:14.378
According to French intelligence, about a place in Germany.

375
00:30:14.478 --> 00:30:15.358
Let's call it what it is.

376
00:30:15.378 --> 00:30:17.300
Russia says it's a cultural center called.

377
00:30:18.433 --> 00:30:23.894
But Berlin says it's allegedly used by Russian intelligence.

378
00:30:24.195 --> 00:30:30.076
Apparently, the cultural program includes ballet literature and destabilizing Western democracy.

379
00:30:30.276 --> 00:30:34.517
It probably is, given our experience with these things.

380
00:30:34.577 --> 00:30:36.438
There is a heavy overlap between...

381
00:30:37.318 --> 00:30:46.046
was already during the Soviet period between cultural organizations and the KGB.

382
00:30:46.086 --> 00:30:48.409
So now, I mean, the overlap continues.

383
00:30:48.569 --> 00:30:59.479
There is this push to get rid of this house, but other people, the hard right and the hard left, the AFD and the BSV,

384
00:31:00.657 --> 00:31:06.499
or BSW in English, they're saying, no, no, no, no, this is all cultural exchange.

385
00:31:07.079 --> 00:31:13.141
I mean, the context of this also is last week's drone attack on Leipzig, right?

386
00:31:13.181 --> 00:31:25.365
I mean, it's, I mean, what we call that misnomer we have attacked here constantly, the hybrid war, I mean, it's because it covers everything and it covers everything.

387
00:31:25.645 --> 00:31:25.885
Right.

388
00:31:26.146 --> 00:31:26.386
Yeah.

389
00:31:26.586 --> 00:31:39.560
So apparently the department responsible for secure telecommunications in Germany will work right next door to the Russian listening post.

390
00:31:39.620 --> 00:31:42.663
So, you know, at least the Wi-Fi will be excellent.

391
00:31:42.683 --> 00:31:43.244
Right.

392
00:31:44.964 --> 00:31:49.087
So anyway, but you talked about the hybrid attacks and stuff.

393
00:31:49.107 --> 00:31:53.049
You know, on the 13th of August, there was a drone incursion in Romania.

394
00:31:53.369 --> 00:31:59.734
On the 13th of August, a powerful explosion at an ammunition factory near Rome.

395
00:32:00.354 --> 00:32:00.574
Right?

396
00:32:00.714 --> 00:32:03.195
I mean, that's really, that's not even on the border.

397
00:32:03.515 --> 00:32:06.536
Following one a week before in Bulgaria.

398
00:32:06.856 --> 00:32:08.057
Right, exactly.

399
00:32:08.277 --> 00:32:20.222
And on the 14th and the 15th of August, there was apparently a suspected arson at the Milrem Robotics in Tallinn, Estonia.

400
00:32:20.722 --> 00:32:26.264
And on the 16th of August, a drone was shot down over Romanian airspace by a Spanish F-18.

401
00:32:26.304 --> 00:32:27.264
Do they have a schedule?

402
00:32:27.704 --> 00:32:28.605
I mean, is there...

403
00:32:29.965 --> 00:32:32.986
You know, what haven't we hit?

404
00:32:33.046 --> 00:32:34.306
Let's just send something up.

405
00:32:34.346 --> 00:32:35.667
You know, how about the Netherlands?

406
00:32:35.707 --> 00:32:36.667
Let's do something there.

407
00:32:37.107 --> 00:32:37.787
Oh, they've done that.

408
00:32:38.407 --> 00:32:40.148
A while back.

409
00:32:40.168 --> 00:32:41.168
I was a while back.

410
00:32:41.248 --> 00:32:41.968
Yeah, right.

411
00:32:42.109 --> 00:32:45.389
I mean, Italy has been kind of spared up till now.

412
00:32:45.669 --> 00:32:46.790
It does have one effect.

413
00:32:47.590 --> 00:32:54.296
which is that at least some people in Europe are getting really annoyed.

414
00:32:54.356 --> 00:33:04.324
So we see Kaja Kallas is proposing now the most far-reaching sanctions listings since the start of the Ukrainian war.

415
00:33:04.764 --> 00:33:05.045
Right.

416
00:33:05.625 --> 00:33:10.466
And so according to Reuters, some 1600 people and entities.

417
00:33:12.167 --> 00:33:31.411
And well, we'll see how it goes because the other side of this is that it's been increasingly difficult to get agreement in the European Council about something, anything proposed by the Commission on dealing with Russia.

418
00:33:31.571 --> 00:33:34.452
And so it's going to be a real tangle and

419
00:33:36.224 --> 00:33:37.425
We'll see how it goes.

420
00:33:38.306 --> 00:33:38.666
Okay.

421
00:33:38.826 --> 00:33:47.913
Well, on that note, 35 years ago tonight, a small country decided sovereignty is something that you build, not something you borrow.

422
00:33:48.593 --> 00:33:51.335
Its neighbors now top NATO spending table.

423
00:33:51.395 --> 00:33:53.397
Everyone else is still reading the questionnaire.

424
00:33:53.697 --> 00:33:55.218
And unless that had happened 35 years ago.

425
00:33:57.312 --> 00:34:09.115
We would not be having this podcast and I would not be here in Estonia with the Estonian, NATO and EU flag behind me in my office.

426
00:34:10.456 --> 00:34:13.616
All that started 35 years ago, was set into motion.

427
00:34:13.636 --> 00:34:18.698
Yeah, well, we were friends long before that, but...

428
00:34:19.563 --> 00:34:20.023
Here we are.

429
00:34:20.504 --> 00:34:22.085
Here we are doing what we do.

430
00:34:22.546 --> 00:34:25.349
Anyway, don't let's thank you again so much.

431
00:34:25.409 --> 00:34:35.138
And I really appreciate, I mean, I love hearing your memories about all this stuff because I mean, you know, you were there, I was still in the U S but you were, you know, you were right on the front line.

432
00:34:35.158 --> 00:34:36.319
So that's really, really cool.

433
00:34:37.080 --> 00:34:37.220
And,

434
00:34:37.620 --> 00:34:42.083
To our audience, I want to thank you for joining us here on The Continental Rift.

435
00:34:42.203 --> 00:34:47.427
We know that your time is valuable, so we really appreciate you spending some of your time with us.

436
00:34:48.447 --> 00:34:53.591
The Continental Rift is hosted by Toomas Hendrik-Ilves and me, Andy Valvur.

437
00:34:53.771 --> 00:34:56.733
The Continental Rift is a Fresh Lens production.

438
00:34:57.354 --> 00:34:58.734
All rights are reserved.

439
00:34:59.175 --> 00:35:00.816
We'll see you again next week.