Episode four is with Toomas Ilves, the former President of Estonia. Toomas is a statesman, foreign policy expert, and a technologist long before the term existed. He brought the internet into Estonian elementary schools before the internet arrived to some U.S. cities. Toomas is like a visitor from a parallel universe where elected leaders are technocratic, effective, and wise. During his time as an elected official, Toomas successfully followed through on his promise to get Estonia into both the EU and NATO, and he guided Estonia to becoming one of the world's most technically advanced countries. While the West has periodically suffered from a naive approach to Russia (i.e. Bush seeing Putin's soul, Obama's "reset," the entirety of Germany’s foreign policy, and Trump’s Helsinki summitt), Toomas has never suffered under such illusions and has been one of the clearest voices against imperialism in general, and Russia in particular, for years.

Toomas on Twitter: @IlvesToomas
Toomas on Mastodon: @toomas_ilves@mastodon.social

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