Episode 8: Fmr Estonian President Ilves recalls "Web War 1" a decade ago

Channeling Brussels

My guest this week is former Estonian President Toomas Ilves, who served in that post for a decade, from 2006 to 2016. Under his governance, the northernmost Baltic State adapted at warp-speed to the internet, becoming known as E-stonia...home to lots of hip startups, the first country to hold national elections with online voting, the first to offer "virtual residency" to foreigners. But this week marks another historic first for Estonia: It's been 10 years since what is now considered the first real act of cyberwar, often called "Web War 1", when Estonia's infrastructure was crippled for three weeks by an online attack. Estonia blamed Russia but was not able to pin down perpetrators linked to the Russian government. A pro-Kremlin youth group claimed the attacks. In the decade since the incident, NATO has gradually responded to the power of such weapons. Last year the alliance formally added "cyber" as a warfighting domain. The European Union has been much slower to sharpen its blades. Former President Ilves has some highly provocative observations about what he sees as the lack of attention being paid to fighting Russian interference in the European political space. Enjoy the show! This week's Channeling Brussels is brought to you by the Atlantic Council. [Intro/Outro music "Happy Rock" by Bensound under a CC-BY-ND license (www.bensound.com/royalty-free-mus…rack/happy-rock/)]