Estonia’s conscription system is designed to produce capable soldiers, not to serve as a substitute for national language education, Major General Vahur Karus, Chief of the General Staff of the Estonian Defence Forces, said in remarks addressing the country’s ongoing debate over language requirements for recruits. While military service can improve a young person’s Estonian through daily teamwork and shared routines, Karus argued that this should be seen as a by-product rather than a mission of the armed forces.
His comments come after the Riigikogu adopted amendments to the Defence Forces Service Act requiring conscripts to have at least B1-level Estonian under the Common European Framework. The change has been contentious, in part because it intersects with broader questions of social cohesion and integration, and because there remains a pool of young people whose language skills do not meet the proposed minimum. Karus acknowledged that many conscripts do improve their language ability while serving, but insisted the Defence Forces cannot plan training around that outcome.
The core constraint, he said, is time. Estonia’s conscription model compresses the transformation from civilian to trained infantry soldier into a limited period, and the military’s schedule is increasingly packed as conscripts move from basic training toward tasks linked to everyday combat readiness. In Karus’s view, there is simply no spare capacity to build a parallel language-training system without sacrificing the quality of military preparation, particularly when the expectation is that conscripts must function effectively as part of squads and then integrate into larger units.
Karus contrasted Estonia’s reality with countries such as Norway, Sweden, Finland and Denmark, where armed forces do not typically face a comparable language-training dilemma because the assumption is that citizens already speak the state language. Estonia’s situation, he implied, has forced the Defence Forces to fill gaps that properly belong to civilian institutions, and he warned that the evolving training system means the military can no longer afford to do so.
Beyond the language debate, Karus also addressed a broader theme shaping Estonia’s defence planning: the challenge of maintaining constant operational readiness while modernising rapidly. He pointed to a recurring lag between the procurement of advanced weapons systems and the point at which they are fully battle-ready, noting that under some arrangements new capabilities may be operational for only a limited window each year. For deterrence to work, he argued, at least part of the force must be able to respond immediately, not episodically, and the message to any potential adversary must be that Estonia can bring more than “an infantryman in a trench” to bear if threatened.
At the same time, Karus returned repeatedly to a traditional proposition that has regained prominence across Europe since Russia’s full-scale war against Ukraine: technology matters, but territory is ultimately held by soldiers on the ground. Drones, long-range fires and air capabilities are valuable, he said, but the decisive fact remains that wherever an Estonian soldier stands, that ground is Estonia’s—and any attacker would have to physically remove that soldier to take it.
He framed today’s challenges as variations on longstanding constraints: limited manpower, limited resources and the need to design the most viable defence posture possible. In that context, Karus described Russia’s current threat environment as the driver behind Estonia’s reforms, warning that changes in Russian force structure and deployments could enable faster, more localised operations near Estonia’s borders. That, he argued, increases the premium on early warning, rapid response and a force that can absorb an initial удар—an opening “sledgehammer blow.”
One of the ways Estonia intends to reinforce day-to-day readiness is by using conscripts more actively within the Defence Forces’ routine posture. Karus portrayed the conscript pool as a resource of smart, initiative-driven young people whose role in maintaining everyday combat preparedness is set to grow.
The debate is also unfolding alongside wider planned changes to the service model. Estonia is moving toward a 12-month period of mandatory military service for all conscripts from 2027, replacing the current system in which service length varies by unit and specialty. Conscripts remain on reservist lists afterward and can be called up for periodic training, while exemptions still apply in cases such as health limitations, conscience objections and certain academic circumstances.
In Karus’s message, the underlying logic is consistent: integration and language learning may occur in uniform, but they are not why the Defence Forces exist. In a security environment defined by urgency and proximity, he argued, conscription must be judged by one standard above all—whether it produces soldiers and units ready to defend the country when it matters most.
