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Estonia’s digital transformation is often praised for its technical brilliance, but its real success came from something more profound: a whole-of-government mindset. Digitalisation was successful because institutions collaborated, the private sector was involved, and citizens adopted new tools. It was never just an IT project; it was a societal project.
Increasingly, there are parallels between this experience and the way modern defence is evolving. Not because civilians should replace the military, and not because I have new doctrines to propose, but because the nature of defence itself is expanding. It now stretches into sectors, technologies, and infrastructures that once seemed outside its scope.
The signs have been clear for years. Estonia’s 2007 cyberattacks showed that a nation can be disrupted without a single physical strike if digital services are compromised. The war in Ukraine demonstrates how widely accessible technologies, especially drones, can alter battlefields and mobilise entire societies. Capabilities once reserved for state militaries are now available on civilian shelves, and the skills to utilise them are increasingly widespread.
For small states on NATO’s frontier, these developments matter. But they also matter for Europe as a whole. Defence today moves through tightly interconnected layers: cybersecurity, energy systems, telecommunications, logistics, supply chains, and public trust. A disruption in one layer often cascades into others. A cyber incident can impact energy grids; an energy shock can affect readiness; supply chain issues can slow procurement; misinformation can erode cohesion. Security has become a system, not a silo.
Technology deepens this interdependence. Modern defence, from AI-enabled analysis to advanced sensors, relies on hardware, and hardware relies on minerals and manufacturing capacity concentrated far from Europe’s borders. Whether a country has these materials or depends entirely on imports, the dependency creates vulnerabilities. This is not an Estonian challenge or a Baltic challenge. It is structural, global, and affects every open economy.
None of this means that every European citizen will one day become a drone operator, or that every university must train defence specialists. But it does reveal that the logic of defence is already broader than conventional institutions. Civilians maintain digital infrastructure, private companies secure energy networks, researchers develop AI, and allies collaborate on shared vulnerabilities. Defence remains the core mission of armed forces, yet it increasingly relies on contributions from across society.
In this shift, Estonia’s experience offers something helpful: not a model to be copied, but a mindset. We learned that resilience grows from integration across agencies, sectors, and communities. Digital trust emerged because the system was coordinated, transparent, and inclusive.
As Europe and its allies confront increasingly hybrid and technologically complex threats, the lesson seems relevant. Defence in the 21st century is not only about protecting territory or institutions. It is about preserving the interconnected systems that make societies function.
And that requires more than any single nation can deliver on its own. It asks for cooperation across governments, sectors, and borders. Estonia’s story demonstrates what is possible when a society adopts a shared responsibility approach. The next chapter in global security may depend on applying that spirit more broadly: not just whole-of-government, but whole-of-society, and ultimately, whole-of-allies.
