The steps taken by both Estonia and Latvia demonstrate a strong commitment not only to implementing comprehensive defence, but also embedding robust gender equality policies as an essential component for their armed forces. While notable progress has been made, especially in Latvia, where female participation rates are among the highest in NATO, persistent structural gaps remain, particularly in leadership representation, gender-sensitive planning, and strategic vision.
Russia’s full-scale war against Ukraine and its continued hybrid operations have fundamentally reshaped the security environment in Europe, particularly for the Baltic states. The region now finds itself on the front line of a broader confrontation between authoritarian aggression and democratic resilience. This shift has forced both NATO and the Baltic nations to reassess their strategic posture and reinforce defence preparedness across all domains. NATO has responded by strengthening its Eastern Flank, enhancing forward defence and incorporating hybrid threat response into its overall strategic planning. In parallel, the Baltic states are intensifying their national efforts, treating the situation as an ongoing hybrid conflict. While NATO membership remains the cornerstone of their defence, ensuring collective protection from the very first centimetre, all three countries are implementing whole-of-society, or total defence, approaches. These efforts include expanding the manpower and combat readiness of their armed forces. This means also promoting the broader inclusion of women across all security and defence sectors.
Intensifying defence
Latvia’s national armed forces consist of three main components: the regular forces, the National Guard (Zemessardze) and the reserve. Together, they form a militarily organized, trained, and armed segment of society tasked with the defence of the state. As of 2024, Latvia has approximately 7,870 professional service soldiers and 10,000 active members of the National Guard. In addition, the country maintains a reserve force of around 38,000 individuals, made up of 12,000 officially designated reserve soldiers and 26,000 trained reservists, who completed compulsory military service before its suspension at the end of 2006.
This tripartite structure ensures both operational readiness and the capacity to scale up defence in times of crisis. Latvia reinstated mandatory military service in 2023 as part of broader efforts to modernize its armed forces. Men aged 18 to 27 must serve 11 months or join the reserve for five years, while women may participate voluntarily. The national armed forces development plan for 2025-2036 sets a long-term vision for adapting Latvia’s defence capabilities to current and future threats. A central objective is expanding the force to 61,000 personnel, including 31,000 active-duty troops and a 30,000-strong general readiness reserve for crisis response.
The Estonian Defence Forces are 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. In total, the Estonian Defence Forces are made up of about 230,000 persons who are enrolled in the mobilization register. The current system allows the state to bring the total to 43,000 uniformed individuals in case of crisis. More than 4,000 persons are in permanent readiness. This is complemented by the Estonian Defence League, which is a voluntary, military-structured national defence organization under the ministry of defence. Armed and engaged in military training, it is designed to strengthen Estonia’s readiness to defend its independence and constitutional order, relying on citizens’ free will and initiative. Founded as a self-defence force, the Estonian Defence League operates as a public legal entity governed by the Estonian Defence League Act. Today, it includes around 18,000 members, and together with its affiliated organizations – the Women’s Voluntary Defence Organization (Naiskodukaitse), Young Eagles (Noored Kotkad), and Home Daughters (Kodutütred) – it mobilizes over 29,000 active volunteers.
Estonia maintains a constitutional obligation for all physically and mentally fit male citizens to serve in the defence forces. As for 2024, 3,500 conscripts served in the service. Conscription lasts eight or 11 months, depending on the role and training assigned and focuses on preparing conscripts to serve as specialists in wartime units. The system operates on a territorial basis – men from the same region serve together, forming reserve units led by commanders trained alongside them. After completing their service, reservists are regularly called up for training to maintain readiness and adapt to new equipment and procedures.
Estonia is considering extending compulsory military service to up to two years and introducing mandatory service for women to address demographic challenges and strengthen force readiness. Additionally, plans are being discussed to develop a trained civil defence reserve, aiming to better integrate civilian crisis response into national defence.
As Latvia and Estonia intensify defence reforms – scaling up conscription, expanding reserves, and strengthening force structures – they face a parallel imperative: ensuring that this transformation reflects the full potential of society. While efforts to bolster conventional capabilities are advancing rapidly in response to Russia’s aggression, the integration of women into the armed forces remains uneven and underdeveloped. Despite rhetorical commitments to gender inclusion, practical implementation often lags behind. In the context of growing security demands, demographic pressures, and the shift towards whole-of-society defence models, the question of women’s participation is both timely and strategic. The following sections explores how Latvia and Estonia are addressing this challenge, where progress has been made, and where gaps persist.
Advancing gender inclusion in Baltic defence
In Latvia, women’s integration into the armed forces represents both a statistical achievement and an ongoing structural challenge. As of 2024, according to data from the ministry of defence, women made up approximately 18 per cent of Latvia’s national armed forces personnel with around 16.5 per cent in professional service and 20.5 per cent in the national guards system. This share places Latvia among the leading NATO members in terms of female representation in the military, and well above the Alliance average of around 12 per cent. However, when this headline number is unpacked, deeper issues of operational integration, policy coherence, and institutional support come into focus.
Women serve across various branches of the Latvian military. Female participation in international missions such as NATO’s Enhanced Forward Presence and EU or UN peacekeeping operations has been consistent, and women have risen to hold some prominent positions. However, female representation in top military leadership remains disproportionately low and there is limited data on retention, promotion rates or the share of women in strategic planning roles. While the Latvian ministry of defence supports the UN’s Women, Peace and Security agenda, gender mainstreaming remains largely confined to formal statements and fragmented initiatives.
The reintroduction of the state defence service in 2023 – a major policy shift intended to strengthen national resilience and conventional force capacity – was a critical moment for gender inclusion. However, Latvia chose not to include women in this renewed conscription framework. This decision has implications beyond personnel numbers. By keeping female participation voluntary, Latvia effectively upholds a gender-segregated model of national defence that clashes with the “whole-of-society” approach promoted in its strategic documents. Positive change can be seen in the fact that the minister of defence, Andris Sprūds, has announced his political will and strong commitment to support positive change and to push for female inclusion in compulsory military service by 2028.
From a cultural standpoint surveys suggest that approaches based in traditional gender roles persist in societal attitudes towards the inclusion of women in compulsory military service and the national armed forces in general, while a more positive attitude among Latvians is slowly but steadily increasing. However, informal institutional cultures, particularly within command structures, continue to reflect gendered stereotypes. Female soldiers report challenges ranging from career stagnation and inadequate access to leadership roles, to unequal treatment in deployment assignments and training opportunities. Furthermore, there is no mandatory gender training across all ranks, and policies addressing sexual harassment or gender-based discrimination remain insufficiently implemented. The defence ministry has designated gender advisor roles and developed basic gender equality strategies, but these often lack enforcement mechanisms and are not tied to performance indicators or budgeting priorities.
The underutilization of women’s potential also has broader strategic implications. Latvia’s adoption of a total defence model requires the mobilization of all societal capabilities – human, institutional and civic. Excluding women from full participation undercuts the very logic of resilience-building and undermines the credibility of Latvia’s international commitments under the Women, Peace and Security agenda and EU gender equality frameworks. Moreover, with a shrinking conscription-age population and ambitious force expansion targets, projected to reach 61,000 personnel by 2036, Latvia cannot afford to neglect half of its population.
Estonia focuses on voluntary service
Estonia has made notable progress in integrating women into its national defence structures, but the key challenges persist not only in increasing the proportion of women in armed forces, but also in transforming numerical inclusion into meaningful participation. As of 2024 women constituted approximately eight per cent of the professional personnel in the Estonian Defence Forces.
A key platform for female military engagement is the Women’s Voluntary Defence Organization (Naiskodukaitse), an affiliated women’s corps that includes nearly 4,000 active members. Operating across 15 districts alongside the Estonian Defence League, Naiskodukaitse equips women with skills in leadership, civil defence and emergency preparedness. As a result, it has become a vital element in Estonia’s whole-of-society defence strategy. Yet, participation through this volunteer organization does not translate into equivalent representation or influence within formal military hierarchies.
In terms of high-level commitments, Estonia is among the leading countries in the region in aligning with the Women, Peace and Security agenda. It has adopted multiple national action plans with the most recent (2023-27) focusing on cross-sectoral coordination, data collection, and international cooperation. Nevertheless, implementation at the institutional level remains uneven. Gender perspectives are inconsistently integrated into military education, strategic planning, or crisis management exercises. While a gender advisor role has been designated and gender training modules introduced in the Baltic Defence College and other institutions, there is no systematic requirement for commanders and planners to incorporate gender analyses into operational planning or risk assessment.
Estonia’s conscription model – universal for men but voluntary for women – also creates a structural disparity in defence obligations. While female conscripts have the same training and deployment opportunities as their male counterparts, their participation remains low and highly selective. Defence policy debates have increasingly acknowledged this imbalance, and there is an ongoing discussion about introducing gender-neutral conscription, particularly in light of demographic trends and growing force requirements. However, no legislative steps have yet been taken to mandate equal conscription obligations, and public discourse on the matter remains cautious.
The retention and promotion of women in the Estonian Defence Forces also reflect underlying institutional barriers. Despite strong political backing for gender equality from the ministry of defence, women remain underrepresented in command positions and are disproportionately concentrated in support rather than combat roles. Moreover, while Estonia has a legal framework for addressing gender-based discrimination and harassment, enforcement and reporting mechanisms remain weak. The current approach relies heavily on individual initiative rather than systemic safeguards, and there is little gender-disaggregated data published on career progression or workplace climate within the forces.
Similarly to Latvia, from a strategic perspective, Estonia’s emphasis on total defence and resilience offers a natural pathway for more integrated gender inclusion. The logic of whole-of-society defence, especially under conditions of hybrid warfare, requires leveraging the full potential of the population, something that cannot be achieved without institutionalizing gender equality across the military and civilian defence structures. The COVID-19 pandemic and regional crisis response activities demonstrated that women are not only willing but capable of contributing significantly to national defence across multiple domains.
Window of opportunity
The steps taken by both Estonia and Latvia demonstrate a strong commitment not only to implementing a comprehensive defence – or so-called whole-of-society – approach, but also to embedding robust gender equality policies as an essential component for the effective implementation of resilient, inclusive and operationally capable armed forces. While notable progress has been made, especially in Latvia, where female participation rates are among the highest in NATO, persistent structural gaps remain, particularly in leadership representation, gender-sensitive planning, and strategic vision. Due to the limited resources and lack of previous experience, as well as other political and social factors, there are several steps to be taken to have significant further progress. The inclusion of women in the armed forces of Latvia and Estonia must evolve from fragmented efforts into fully integrated, institutionalized policy frameworks.
Both countries now face a critical window of opportunity. As they scale up force structures, modernize capabilities, and embrace whole-of-society defence approaches, embedding gender perspectives at every level of military development is both timely and necessary. This means moving beyond numbers to address systemic issues. These steps may include, but are not limited to, the creation of relevant vocabulary, transparent promotion pathways, integrating gender into operational planning, and military education.
Future success also hinges on stronger regional coordination in data and research- based policies and sustained political leadership. Baltic-level cooperation, targeted recruitment and training in emerging security sectors, and meaningful engagement with civil society can help translate stated ambitions into measurable, meaningful outcomes. Ultimately, ensuring that women are not only present but fully empowered in the military strengthens operational effectiveness, democratic legitimacy, and national resilience. Gender inclusion is not some kind of secondary consideration; it is a strategic imperative.
The views and opinions in this text do not necessarily reflect those of the Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung.