If anyone could feel Sony's pain when the company was hacked in late 2014, it was the Estonian government. After all, Estonia in 2007 was the first country to be hit by anything that could be defined as a full-scale cyber attack - an attack that showed just how vulnerable states are in cyberspace. Still, until December last year, cyber warfare had been largely the bailiwick of theoreticians - fodder for think tank studies and NATO roundtables. (Estonia worked hard to push the topic onto the agenda.) The Sony hack changed that. Cyber warfare now sits squarely in the public consciousness, and it's here to stay, whatever the degree of North Korean involvement in the hit.
For Estonia, a global turning point is a national opportunity.
Along with Baltic brethren Latvia and Lithuania, Estonia sits in a geopolitical cage: 1.3 million people huddled in the crevice between the West and Russia. The Baltic states have all taken firm steps to join the Western consensus, acceding to the European Union and to NATO in 2004. Lithuania in January became the most recent state to join the euro; Latvia is now taking its turn to guide the rotating presidency of the Council of the European Union.
Estonia, though, has gone a step further to move beyond the constraints of geography. The country's digital prowess is well-known. Estonia is a country of high-tech startups and wireless governance, with a president who philosophizes on Twitter and a Cabinet that casts its votes from laptops and tablets. In an age of innovation, this is a sound way to do business. But Estonia wants more, and has made its push for digital leadership a strategic cornerstone. Two events in 2014 built momentum for this effort.
In December, the country started accepting applications for electronic residency. The e-residency program doesn't extend physical residency to those accepted, but it does allow anyone, worldwide, who wants to establish a business in the country to transact every aspect of their legal affairs online. Taxes can be paid, documents administered, notaries and middlemen avoided, through the use of an electronic signature. The program drew more than 13,000 subscribers in its first week alone - this even though would-be e-residents for now have to physically apply in Estonia. Most of the applicants hailed from EU states, the United States, and Russia.
So close to Russia, so far from Silicon Valley
The e-residency initiative builds on Estonia's reputation as a leader in what is termed e-governance. Estonians can vote online. Signing up for healthcare takes five minutes; setting up a company takes 18. The pitch to entrepreneurs abroad gives outsiders a stake in Estonia's wellbeing - a slow-moving transactional process that can pay dividends, but over the long run.
Of more immediate significance, Estonia in October took stewardship of the European Commission's Digital Single Market portfolio. Led by Commission Vice President Andrus Ansip, Estonia through 2019 has a chance to bring its ideas regarding connectivity, e-governance, and cyber security to the supranational level. The appointment by Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker was wise: It puts those who do electronic governance best in a position to broadly influence the Continent's policies. It's even more important on Baltic shores, because it puts Tallinn in position to export to Brussels an idea of growing urgency in an era of Russian restlessness: That the Baltic states are more than just a bulwark at the edges of the former Soviet space. They are valuable contributors.
Indeed, after the DDoS attack on Estonia, the NATO Cooperative Cyber Defence Centre of Excellence was set up in Tallinn. Estonia in the aftermath of the attack considered but decided against invoking Article 5 of the NATO treaty: What the country did instead is in essence to become the West's leading think tank on cyber security.
For Estonia, 2015 is a year of opportunity amid great uncertainty. The country looks better-placed than ever to use its digital strategy to try to push somewhat past its geopolitical constraints. At the national, supranational and Transatlantic levels, elements of that strategy have matured and promise to bear fruit. If nothing else, Western leaders from Berlin to Washington should take note. They have good reason to put muscle behind their words of support for Baltic states vulnerable to Russian influence.
(AP photo)
