Organization
The Defence Forces consist of regular military units totaling 5,600 officers and men, and a voluntary corps, the Defence League with about 12,600 soldiers. The planned size of the operational (wartime) structure at the moment is 30,000 personnel. The Defence Forces are a reserve force, and as such, "all physically and mentally healthy male citizens" must undergo compulsory military service for the duration of either 8 or 11 months, during which time the conscripts are taught the basic skills needed to be mobilized into active duty. The Defence Forces are stationed within four defence districts with headquarters in Tallinn, Tapa, Luunja, Pärnu.
The Estonian Army is structured according to the principle of a reserve force which means that the main part of the defence forces of the state are units in the reserve. For a state with few human and economic resources, a reserve force based on the will of defence of the citizens is the most viable form of national defence.
In peacetime the reservists conduct normal lives and the state takes care of their training and the procurement of equipment and weapons. In wartime the reservists are mobilized into military units. The reserve units are formed on the territorial principle, i.e. conscripts from one area are called up at one time to one unit and after service they are sent to the reserve as one unit. The Estonian Army is always in constant defence readiness in co-operation with the other services.
Read more about this topic: Estonian Military
Famous quotes containing the word organization:
“Democracy means the organization of society for the benefit and at the expense of everybody indiscriminately and not for the benefit of a privileged class.”
—George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950)
“Unless a group of workers know their work is under surveillance, that they are being rated as fairly as human beings, with the fallibility that goes with human judgment, can rate them, and that at least an attempt is made to measure their worth to an organization in relative terms, they are likely to sink back on length of service as the sole reason for retention and promotion.”
—Mary Barnett Gilson (1877–?)
“I would wish that the women of our country could embrace ... [the responsibilities] of citizenship as peculiarly their own. If they could apply their higher sense of service and responsibility, their freshness of enthusiasm, their capacity for organization to this problem, it would become, as it should become, an issue of profound patriotism. The whole plane of political life would be lifted.”
—Herbert Hoover (1874–1964)