EN
The following chapters analyse the background of Estonia’s decision to join the military operation of Afghanistan, its links to Estonian society and political elites, but also a possible influence of the Afghanistan experience on the post-ISAF NATO. This article argues that the Afghanistan experience has offered two basic lessons to be learned by Estonia in framing its understanding of crisis management: 1) Estonia’s military achieved valuable combat experience against a “live” enemy; 2) our political elites learned the importance of post-conflict state-building, that civil support to state-building in the post-conflict situation is no less important than a military contribution.