Trisha Shetty (Editor)

Maryland–Estonia National Guard Partnership

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Origin
  
1993

Prime Minister
  
Andrus Ansip

Ambassador to U.S.
  
Marina Kaljurand

Country President
  
Toomas Hendrik Ilves

Minister of Defense
  
Urmas Reinsalu

Ambassador to Estonia
  
Jeffrey D. Levine

Maryland–Estonia National Guard Partnership

The Maryland–Estonia National Guard Partnership is one of 22 European partnerships that make-up the U.S. European Command State Partnership Program and one of 65 worldwide partnerships that make-up the National Guard State Partnership Program. The partnership serves as a success model to other nations.

Contents

History

  • EU and NATO accession in 2004 / Eurozone in Jan 2011
  • The Estonian economy has recovered to pre-crisis levels and is reporting approximately 1.9% growth.
  • Major concerns: energy security, cyber defense, emigration “brain drain” and initial defense.
  • NATO is the cornerstone of Estonia’s National Security. Their defense model focuses on Initial Defense and NATO led Expeditionary Operations.
  • Estonia cooperates extensively with Latvia and Lithuania on joint military exercises. However, Estonia views itself primarily as a Scandinavian country, not Baltic and has close cultural and governmental ties with those countries.

    • Partnership focus

    The current focus of the Maryland-Estonia Partnership is purely military-to-military based and includes ISAF Operational Support, Cyber Defense, Special Operations Forces (SOF) development, EST Air Force development, and the development of a Veteran Care/Warrior Warrior Program. To this end, Estonia hopes to improve training and force protection in support of ISAF and export expertise in cyber defense, explosive ordnance disposal, and E-governance to other NATO/EU nations. Additionally, Estonia seeks opportunities to increase their support of international operations, co-deployments with MD and enhanced regional M2M/Security Cooperation efforts.<

    References

    Maryland–Estonia National Guard Partnership Wikipedia
    (Text) CC BY-SA