{"id":8623,"date":"2023-09-19T15:46:44","date_gmt":"2023-09-19T15:46:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/ng\/?p=8623"},"modified":"2023-10-03T15:48:21","modified_gmt":"2023-10-03T15:48:21","slug":"30-year-celebration-maryland-estonia-state-partnership-program","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/ng\/2023\/09\/19\/30-year-celebration-maryland-estonia-state-partnership-program\/","title":{"rendered":"30 Year Celebration Maryland-Estonia: State Partnership Program"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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By 1st Sgt. Thaddeus Harrington<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Maryland National Guard and the Estonian Defense Forces celebrate 30 years of partnership during a ceremony on Sept. 19, 2023, at \u00c4mari Air Base, Harijumaa, Estonia. This partnership began in 1993 following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 and a newly independent Estonia. It aimed to assist with the Baltic state\u2019s transition to an independent nation to encourage civil and military cooperation to promote peace, stability, prosperity and democratic principles.

\u201cAfter 30 years the mutually beneficial partnership between Maryland and Estonia has not only made us NATO allies but friends,\u201d said Col. Andrew Collins, commander of the Maryland Army National Guard. \u201cOur Estonian friends know they will never be alone in facing future challenges. United shoulder-to-shoulder, we are stronger and together we will face whatever challenges come our way.\u201d

The ceremony coincided with the end of two events. The first-of-its-kind trilateral cyber exercise Baltic Blitz 23, from Sept. 17-20, 2023, at \u00c4mari Air Base. About 30 Airmen from the Maryland Air National Guard\u2019s 175th Wing, two soldiers from the Illinois Army National Guard, 12 service members from Poland, and 30 Estonians participated in the cyber exercise, which centered around securing simulated rail transportation systems from cyber attacks.

Second event: Soldiers from the Maryland Army National Guard’s 175th Infantry Regiment shared their expertise in ambush tactics with members of the Estonian Defence League in Rutja, L\u00e4\u00e4ne-Viru County, Estonia. The training, which took place from September 16-18, 2023, trained over 2,000 EDL members in how to set up, react to, and plan ambushes.

\u201cThe Maryland and Estonia State Partnership Program is a phenomenal example of what we can accomplish when we collaborate \u2013 from cyber to culture, education to defense, this partnership is stronger than ever,\u201d said U.S. Ambassador to Estonia George P. Kent.

In the past thirty years, the State Partnership Program has matured from assisting countries in their journey to become NATO members to working together in peace and in war. The partnership has also expanded beyond the military so that now Estonia and Maryland share civic, economic, medical, educational and cultural engagements through civilian organization and partner city agreements.

\u201cWe are looking forward to possible cooperation in information operations and several spatial tactical trainings,\u201d said Maj. Gen. Riho \u00dchtegi, commander of Estonian Defence League. \u201cThere are still many cooperation [areas] left and I\u2019m sure that after the next 30 years we are proud to say again that our cooperation is successful.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By 1st Sgt. Thaddeus Harrington The Maryland National Guard and the Estonian Defense Forces celebrate 30 years of partnership during a ceremony on Sept. 19, 2023, at \u00c4mari Air Base, Harijumaa, Estonia. This partnership began in 1993 following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 and a newly independent Estonia. It aimed to assist  Read the Rest…<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":160,"featured_media":8633,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8623","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/ng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8623","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/ng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/ng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/ng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/160"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/ng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8623"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/ng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8623\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8634,"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/ng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8623\/revisions\/8634"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/ng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8633"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/ng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8623"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/ng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8623"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/ng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8623"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}