Trust and training decide how far Estonia's defence tech goes

Eleri Lillemäe, a military sociology researcher at the Estonian Military Academy, writes that the worth of defence technology depends on public confidence, attitudes and the skill to operate new tools.

She points to 1967, when two American futures researchers published one hundred forecasts of innovations expected by the turn of the century. A later review found that forecasts for computing and communications were accurate about 80 percent of the time, while in other fields fewer than half held up. Technical change can sometimes be anticipated, she argues, while it is much harder to foresee how people adopt it and what follows in society. For defence equipment, that human side has three parts.

The first is public attitude. Estonia is comfortable with technology. A 2025 Eurobarometer found that 79 percent of residents said digitising public and private services made life easier, and research has linked a positive view of technology with a warmer view of using it for national defence. That openness still has limits. People may support drones and self-driving vehicles for protecting the country, yet be more cautious if those systems decide on their own in matters of life and death.

The second is the institutions that develop and field the tools. A 2025 public-opinion survey found that 79 percent of residents trusted the Defence Forces, which Lillemäe treats as a favourable base. Keeping that trust, she writes, means people must grasp what new systems are for, which risks they carry and who answers for mistakes, especially when the technology bears directly on safety.

The third is the equipment and the people who use it. Social optimism and confidence in institutions help defence adoption, but the payoff still depends on the user. Interviews with Estonian service members show that new technology is seen as a way to spare lives and lighten the load on personnel. Bringing it into service still turns on practical experience, reliability and the operator's confidence. New missile systems, drones and autonomous vehicles require fresh knowledge and training. Artificial intelligence adds a further question: if a system can read a situation faster than a person, the user may not have enough time or expertise to check its recommendations.

Development and procurement should therefore look past technical performance alone. Defence strength, Lillemäe concludes, follows both from what the equipment can do and from the conditions under which society accepts it and people are able to use it.