There aren't many European leaders who take a harder line on Russian President Vladimir Putin's aggression in Ukraine than his Estonian counterpart, Toomas Hendrik Ilves. His sympathy for Ukraine, however, is tempered by a belief that it didn't do enough in advance to protect itself. His own country, he suggests, has been more responsible, which is why it will be more secure.
Ilves, who grew up in New Jersey and graduated from Columbia University, speaks English with a perfect American accent. (Locals say his Estonian is worse.) If our conversation weren't taking place in the modest Tallinn mansion that houses the presidential office, and if Ilves weren't wearing his trademark bow tie, it would be easy to take him for a U.S. administration official — one who is particularly indignant about Putin's disregard for post-World War II international rules (and, by extension, his disrespect for post-Cold War American hegemony).
But Ilves' concerns are more easily understandable than those of Americans. His tiny country of 1.3 million lies on Russia's borders and is home to 300,000 ethnic Russians, 130,000 of them carrying Russian passports. So when Putin has taunted the West in recent months, by having warplanes invade NATO airspace, for example, Ilves, the commander-in-chief of his country's military, has had no choice but to worry.