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.



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.<