I understand there is a bit of concern among some in Estonia regarding the country’s past, current and future performance in cyber defense. There has also been some implication that Estonia may not have been nearly as prepared as it should have been when the 2007 large scale denial of service attack ocurred. Some may even argue that Estonia talks the talk, but doesn’t walk the walk of cyber protection. I disagree. This country has done exceedingly well in dealing with a rather new threat that is now on many countries’ strategic planning agenda — after Estonia. In 2007 Estonians not only overcame a unique challenge on their own, but they also learned a great deal and went about planning for future cyber security. And with the establishment of the NATO Cyber Defense Center of Excellence and the creation of Estonia’s Cyber Defense League, our allies in Tallinn have done much more than just help themselves. The U.S. will join the NATO Center this year to share even more in the common effort of a growing number of Alliance countries to build the NATO cyber defense strategy agreed at the Lisbon NATO Foreign Minister’s meeting last November. In addition, the strong relationship between Estonia’s National Guard and our Maryland National Guard is yielding solid bilateral results, among them the appreciation of the public-private sector community of purpose in protecting civilian as well as governmental infrastructure from cyber attack. Now, do we all have more to learn and more actions to take? Of course. As information technology and its applications in our daily lives advance and change at lightening speed, so does the capacity of criminal actors to disrupt our societies using these tools. But when it comes to hands-on cyber defense, both Estonia and the United States remain committed and capable of maintaining leadership roles.
Ambassador Michael C. Polt (ret) 
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Ellis,
You “lucked into” a very informative Blog. I would suggest a visit to Estonia and you will be even more impressed than any written article could do.
The people are over-whelming friendly. The cultural interests cover about anything you could ever want to see. Travel methods are varied including plane, train, bus, taxi, ferry both to and from the surrounding countries in addition to “in-country”.
A trip to the local library can furnish you with many group contacts of people meeting to learn or practice different languages. American English is readily available from almost every business. The airport at Tallinn is among one of the most user friendly ones I and my wife have ever been through. Almost ant taxi driver can take you to the drop off point within 500 ft of the entrance. If you are hungry there is a small corner cafe just about the same distance in the opposite direction that serves fresh made ethnic dishes at reasonable prices. On the topic of money, if you have a VISA smart card you should be able to use it as normal. If you do not have the smart card version you can still use it but will need to work through a teller inside the bank lobby. BTW there are led displays of the current currency exchange rates displayed in almost every bank lobby.
Overall the weather is very close to the US Midwest except the winters can be quite a bit colder; proper clothing can still make even winter enjoyable.
Good luck on yoour first accidental visit to the Blog.
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