On 24 July, ICDS was visited by a group of American, British and Australian journalists, authors and entrepreneurs that are touring Estonia on a familiarisation visit focused on the country‘s history, society, politics, economic development, foreign relations as well as security and defence.
Visitors participated in a roundtable discussion co-organised by the ICDS and the Strategic Communications Department of the Headquarters of the Estonian Defence Forces (HQ EDF). Its speakers—Mariliis Gross, Deputy Director of NATO and the EU Department of the Estonian Ministry of Defence, Colonel Aron Kalmus, Chief of Operations Department of the HQ EDF, and Tomas Jermalavičius, ICDS Head of Studies and Research Fellow—covered such topics as transatlantic relations, European security and defence, the nature of security threats posed by Russia, Estonia‘s defence strategy, NATO‘s Enhanced Forward Presence (eFP) and Russia‘s forthcoming Zapad exercise.