Commander of Estonian Defence League

Major General Ilmar Tamm 
04.05.1972 Tartu, Estonia

MG Ilmar Tamm voluntarily entered the conscript service of the re-established Estonian Defence Forces in March 1992. He was among the first ten Estonian officers graduated from the Finnish Military Academy in 1994. After the graduation, he was posted at Signal Battalion, being in charge of troops at company level up to the battalion commander. After hand over the Commanding Officer duties, he was posted to lead the G6 Department at General Staff in 1998. A brief tour at General Staff was followed by two years Senior Staff Officers Course at Finnish National Defence University. Equipped with a degree, staff college-level knowledge and confidence he returned to the General Staff and was assigned to the J6 Department in 2001. In four years tour as the J6 Department Head, among other duties, he was directly involved with coordinating and implementing secure communications required for the Estonian Republic accession to the NATO in 2004. He was an initiator, and core planning team member of the NATO Cooperative Cyber Defence Centre of Excellence (CCD CoE) project formally proposed to the Allied Command of Transformation (NATO ACT) in 2004. In 2005, he was assigned to the G6 Section Head of Operations and Exercises post at Allied Land Component Command (ALCC) Headquarters in Heidelberg, Germany. His tour included seven months deployment as the Chief of CJ6 Ops Joint Communication Coordination Centre to ISAF HQ Kabul in 2007. In May 2008 during the MoU signing ceremony of the CCD CoE in NATO HQ in Brussels, he was formally designated to the Director of the freshly established Centre in Tallinn, Estonia. Next four years at the Centre, he was in charge to develop education and research about the new domain of warfare including policy, legal and technical aspects.

In August 2013, following the post-graduate studies at the Royal College of Defence Studies in London, he was appointed to the Chief of Staff post of the Estonian Defence League Headquarters in Tallinn. After five years tour in Defence League, he moved to the Baltic Defence College. He took the Course Director’s responsibilities of the Joint Command and General Staff Course, focussing on operational level education of the senior officers and civil servants of allied and partner nations. Major General Tamm held leadership post as the Commandant of the Baltic defence College from June 2020 to June 2023. Second half of 2023 MG Tamm served as the Deputy Commander of the Estonian Defence Forces.

Since 16 December 2023 he took command of the Estonian Defence League.

Ilmar is married to Annika. They have two adult daughters, Anett and Laureen. Among the range of interests, his passion in free time dedicated to off-road cycling, science fiction literature, and social Latin style dancing with Annika.