The elections are over and the main options of Estonian foreign policy seem to have been confirmed: membership of the EU and NATO, maintaining strong relations with our allies and investing in defence capability are the pillars that the next government is expected not to disturb.
Read more
At its summit in Wales in September 2014 NATO decided to launch large-scale military exercises in order to show the Alliance’s readiness and political determination, and the willingness of partners to cooperate.
Read more
In the last days before the State of the Union Address (SOTU) by President Donald Trump a state of near-panic descended upon the defence and foreign affairs chattering classes in Europe.
Read more
NATO battlegroups in Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland have been a success, according to ICDS research fellows Kalev Stoicescu and Pauli Järvenpää, presenting their recent report, “Contemporary Deterrence: Insights and Lessons from Enhanced Forward Presence”, to a full house on 1 February. “They are fully integrated into the land forces brigades and contribute to the self-defence capabilities of their host nations, the chain of command is clear and they are providing a deterrent presence.”
Read more
The Swedish general election of 9 September 2018 generated very unclear results, at least by that country’s standards.
Read more
Russia is neither ten feet tall nor the Soviet Union, but Northern Europe must take the situation as it is and not as we want it to be: the Russian military’s training and exercise pattern is very worrying, argued Colonel Dr John Andreas Olsen of the Royal Norwegian Air Force, Eerik Marmei, Director-General of the Policy Planning Department at the Estonian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and Tomas Jermalavičius, ICDS Head of Studies, at an ICDS Talk on 25 January.
Read more
Although the Allies are frequently under cyber-attacks, none of them have caused so serious damage for NATO to invoke Article 5. Triggering Article 5 depends on the consequences of the cyber-attack by a nation state, told Director of the International Centre for Defence Studies Sven Sakkov to the Norwegian outlet Folk og Forsvar.
Read more
NATO decided, in July 2016, to establish an enhanced Forward Presence (eFP) in Estonia, Latvia,
Lithuania and Poland.
Events in the world in 2018 continued the current trend, indicating the next arms race and the primacy of the law of force.
Read more
On 11-12 July 2018, the heads of state and government of the North Atlantic Alliance met in Brussels.
Read more