over the last two years, the Finnish-Estonian military relationship has come out into the open, with Finnish officers pridefully appearing with their charges at several joint military exercises, such as the Baltic Challenge ’97 war games in which 2,000 troops and sailors from the Nordic and Baltic republics participated, along with a contingent from NATO. Fittingly, the games were held at Paldiski, which briefly reverted to its former military use for the occasion.
Today Finnish military experts work with their Estonian opposites on everything from officer instruction and artillery training to peace support operations. Essentially, although no one will come out and say so, the new 8,000 strong Estonian armed forces are a miniature clone of the Finnish defense forces (minus the Finnish air force). Thus far, over 100 Estonians have received direct training in Finland.
To be sure, this area of bilateral cooperation has not been without its mishaps. The official objective of the Finnish-Estonian military “Project,” has been to develop, on the Estonian side, “an independent military force with its own decision-making capability,” according to the literature that was given me. However, because of the residue of Soviet military ideology, which stressed that decisions ought to be made in the upper echelons of command, Finnish instructors have actually had difficulty teaching junior Estonian officers to make their own decisions.
“When you consider that we are starting from scratch — that Estonia has never really had its own military force, even during the interwar period — then I think you can call the project a qualified success, ” a Finnish staff officer involved with the “project” confided to me. “But too often the officer candidates we work with are afraid to move on their own. But I think this will change.”