Global Security: in Search of a New Vision - Center for Strategic ...

186 Estonian Defense Minister Jaak Aaviksoo
and have a map of the per cep tions of those threats, we might be more suc cess ful in solv ing at least some
of them.
I do believe that cyber-threats are gener i cally global, and it is thus very appro pri ate to address this
threat in a work shop on global secu rity. Cyber-threats can emerge from any where in the world, and they
can hit you in mil li sec onds any where in the world. It is hard to imag ine some thing more global than
cyber-threats; if you use a com puter or a PDA such threats will address you directly, but cyber-attacks can
influ ence you in indi rect ways as well. And again per cep tion is impor tant; some of us may be annoyed
when a large amount of spam mail or viruses invades our sys tems or we have a pro gram that will not start,
and some of us may have coun try wide networks go down.
ADDRESS ING THE DIVER GENCE IN THREAT PER CEP TION
As we learned in Esto nia, and as some other coun tries have learned, both gov ern ment and non-gov -
ern ment insti tu tions can come under unfriendly attacks with dif fer ent objec tives. If we ask, “What is the
national per cep tion of a pos si ble cyber- threat” Will there be a coher ent under stand ing of the extent to
which such a threat is shared by dif fer ent agen cies and gov ern ment offices I think the pic ture would be
blurred, which is char ac ter is tic of the mod ern secu rity envi ron ment at large. This diver gence in threat
per cep tion is the big gest prob lem I see. If you ask defense or for eign affairs pro fes sion als where they feel
national secu rity threats lie and com pare their answer to that of ordi nary pol i ti cians and their con stit u -
ents, you will see quite a large gap. I don’t think we will be able to address all of the problems unless we
can bridge that gap.
Do we lack the resources to imple ment the Com pre hen sive Approach, whether or not every body
agrees to exactly what it is No, we do not. I believe there are enough resources in the hands of the inter -
na tional com mu nity to fol low the Com pre hen sive Approach. There fore, can’t we raise enough resources
to solve some secu rity-related issues Don’t we have enough resources I think we do despite the fact that
there are small gaps, because these can be breached pro vided the polit i cal will is there. In a way, the fur -
ther we go from our bor ders, the greater the prob lem becomes, because we can not con sol i date polit i cal
will. This inabil ity, I believe, is directly related to the fact that we per ceive the threats dif fer ently, within
coun tries, between coun tries, in the Euro-Atlan tic space, and across the Atlan tic. And that is one of the
rea sons why we have not been able to perform as well as we might wish.
That is also why, when I was asked, “Min is ter, do you think that the gap between the words and the
deeds of Pres i dent Karzai regard ing cor rup tion is greater or smaller than the gap between the words and
deeds of the inter na tional com mu nity on a com pre hen sive and coor di nated approach” I failed to give a
good answer. I gave an answer as a pol i ti cian, but I was not sat is fied with it. The need to con cen trate polit -
i cal will applies to a num ber of mod ern secu rity issues, includ ing cyber-defense. One of our major prob -
lems is try ing to achieve this con cen tra tion in order to breach the per cep tion gap and to decide how big a
threat cyber-attacks truly are.
Are cyber-threats global threats Yes, they are—there is no doubt. Are they real or imag i nary I believe
that they will be real threats in the next sev eral years to come, with a medium-level threat prob a bil ity. Are
we united in our per cep tion of these threats Regard ing the mil i tary, pol i ti cians, and admin is tra tions
inter na tion ally, the most prob a ble answer is not yet.
OUR VUL NER A BIL ITY TO AND THE EFFECTS OF CYBER-THREATS
How vul ner a ble are we to these threats As has been said twice at this con fer ence, an inter est ing char -
ac ter is tic of the Internet is that the dem o cratic inter na tional com mu nity believes that the Internet pro -
vides open access to infor ma tion, that it is the best instru ment for under min ing total i tar ian sys tems, and