What the attacks definitely signaled was that despite entry into NATO, Estonia could not easily get away from its former colonial master. The NATO alliance is predicated on a single phrase, contained in Article 5 of the treaty, which holds that a military attack on one member is an attack on all. For all the invocations of the idea of the West, its practical, geopolitical expression is Article 5, a sentence, a promise. But what if that sentence was rendered meaningless? Russia could not risk a military war with NATO, but what if the attack was non-military and non-attributable?
