For the first time in American history, an impeached president is running for reelection – and quite possibly could win. That stark reality came to life Tuesday night, as President Donald Trump delivered his third State of the Union address, a more raucous campaign-style event dotted with made-for-TV moments than the often-staid annual affair. 

The president delivered last night’s speech amid the expectation of acquittal today by the Senate. A midafternoon announcement from Utah Republican Sen. Mitt Romney that he would vote to convict Mr. Trump on one count dealt a blow to the Republican wall of unity. But the president remained a leader on the verge of triumph, with his Gallup job approval rating at an all-time high (49%) and his political adversaries warning of a chief executive unbound. 

The icing on the cake this week came from Iowa, where the fiasco over the Democrats’ inability to report the results of Monday’s presidential caucuses in a timely fashion handed Mr. Trump another political gift. 

Still, questions abound: Will the president overplay his hand? Post-acquittal, will he feel unfettered in his behavior as he seeks a second term? While some Republican senators have said that his dealings with the Ukrainian president – withholding military aid in exchange for dirt on political opponents – were “shameful,” all but Senator Romney voted today to acquit.

Senator Romney’s stunning decision to vote to convict on one count – abuse of power – no doubt took some of the wind out of Mr. Trump’s sails. Calling himself “profoundly religious,” the former GOP presidential nominee said he couldn’t think of much “that would be a more egregious assault on our Constitution than trying to corrupt an election to maintain power. And that’s what the president did.”

The logical approach for Mr. Trump, political analysts say, would be to restrain his behavior and not do anything too risky through Election Day. After all, he can claim vindication on the impeachment charges; the economy is strong; a near-record-high 59% of Americans say their personal finances are better now than a year ago, according to Gallup; and Democrats are in disarray. As things look now, Mr. Trump is in a reasonably good position to win in November. 

“It seems like the people around him would say, ‘Just run the string here, then you’ll have four more years and you can do what you want to do,’” says Cal Jillson, a presidential scholar at Southern Methodist University in Dallas. 

Aides had reportedly advised the president not to mention impeachment in the State of the Union, following President Bill Clinton’s 1999 precedent, and the fact that the president stuck to that advice Tuesday night was noteworthy – suggesting he may be willing to exercise a bit more discipline three years into his presidency. Mr. Trump, after all, is famous for over-the-top rhetoric, via Twitter and at rallies, and his cries of “witch hunt” (or similar charges) have been part of his repertoire since he announced his candidacy in 2015. 

Yet the cloud of impeachment hung over the proceedings, and its accompanying partisan rancor contributed to a circuslike atmosphere. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Mr. Trump publicly snubbed each other at the beginning and end – most dramatically, when Speaker Pelosi ripped a paper copy of his speech in half after he finished. Some Democrats heckled and gestured over a pronouncement on health care; some walked out. 

Moderate Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, one of only two GOP senators (along with Senator Romney) to vote in favor of witnesses during the Senate trial, argued Sunday that Mr. Trump has learned his lesson. 

“He was impeached,” Senator Collins said on CBS’s “Face the Nation.” “And there has been criticism by both Republican and Democratic senators of his call [with the Ukrainian president]. I believe that he will be much more cautious in the future.” (Though she later said that “hope” may have been a better word than “believe.”)

One big difference between the Clinton and Trump impeachments is that Mr. Clinton’s took place toward the end of his presidency, and Mr. Trump’s is taking place amid a reelection bid. 

But there’s also a big difference in their respective postures. With Mr. Clinton, “there was this general sense that he was chastened and remorseful,” says Russell Riley, co-chair of the Presidential Oral History Program at the University of Virginia’s Miller Center. “With Trump, there’s none of that. So there’s an enormous amount of anxiety about what he might do as president from this point forward, because he’s effectively a president unbound.” 

Professor Riley sees this period as constitutionally perilous.

In the past, “institutions balanced other institutions, but those checks and balances are largely not working,” he says. “So the only real question is the sense of self-restraint that President Trump feels as it relates to his own reelection prospects.” 

Trump defense lawyer Alan Dershowitz stoked fears last week that the president’s executive power could become unfettered, when the retired Harvard Law professor asserted, “If a president does something which he believes will help him get elected in the public interest, that cannot be the kind of quid pro quo that results in impeachment.” 

Mr. Dershowitz later said his remarks were mischaracterized, but the larger concern about presidential overreach remains. 

House Democrats, meanwhile, say more information will emerge about the president’s actions in Ukraine. One possibility could be testimony in House hearings from John Bolton, a former Trump national security adviser, and Lev Parnas, the Ukrainian-born former associate of Trump personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani. 

In an interview Sunday on “Face the Nation,” House Intelligence Chairman Adam Schiff would not state whether Democrats plan to subpoena Mr. Bolton. But, he added, “the truth will come out” – whether in testimony before the House or in Mr. Bolton’s forthcoming book. 

Oded Balilty/AP

The West Bank Jewish settlement of Mitzpe Yeriho on Jan. 26, 2020. After President Donald Trump presented a Mideast plan favorable to Israel, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed to move ahead with the annexation of portions of the occupied West Bank, including dozens of Jewish settlements.

Even before President Donald Trump announced the heavily pro-Israel details of his long-awaited Middle East peace deal, the demands were growing from Israel’s right wing to annex portions of the occupied West Bank.

And in the jumbled aftermath of the announcement a week ago, in which members of the Trump administration contradicted each other on whether the two-state plan authorized Israel to act unilaterally and immediately, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, locked in another tight election campaign, appeared poised to do just that.

But observers fear that immediate annexation would turn into an infamous watershed: closing the door on the possibility of a negotiated two-state deal, undermining Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and his government, rupturing Israel’s peace with Jordan, and challenging Israel’s most fundamental assumptions about itself.

“In every criteria that I’m trying to assess it, it’s disastrous. In security, in diplomacy, in Israel’s legitimization in the international community, in the internal schism that he would create in Israel,’’ says Gilead Sher, a fellow at the Institute for National Security Studies who was a peace negotiator two decades ago under former Prime Minister Ehud Barak.

“The meaning” of annexation, he says, “is a divergence from the founding vision of the State of Israel as a Jewish, democratic, secure, and moral state; with recognized borders and international legitimacy.”

Amid enormous pressure from Israeli settlers to act, Prime Minister Netanyahu initially had planned a cabinet vote on annexation on Sunday, but the U.S. administration persuaded him to hold off until after Israel’s March 2 election. On Tuesday, Mr. Netanyahu promised to immediately bring annexation to a vote if he wins, saying, “We won’t let this great opportunity slip from our grasp.”

The plan’s tacit support for near-term annexation of portions of the West Bank and the Jewish settlements, even before a negotiated deal, turned previous conflict-resolution paradigms on their heads.

The so-called “Deal of the Century” envisions Jewish settlements and the Jordan Valley – some 30% of the West Bank and nearly all of the 427,000 Jewish residents there – being incorporated into Israel. A handful of Israeli settlements would remain as enclaves within the Palestinian state, and Israel would have to observe a building freeze in those areas.

In return for the annexation of West Bank lands, the plan suggested, subject to approval, that Israel would swap Israeli Arab towns adjacent to the West Bank as well as portions of the Negev desert.

But, Mr. Sher argues, since unilateral annexation would be rejected by the Palestinians and preclude formation of a Palestinian state on the remaining land, it would create a one-state reality between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean. And that, he said, would force Israel to choose between offering citizenship to 2.2 million Palestinians residing in the West Bank – creating a binational state – or relegating them to a permanent autonomy akin to apartheid.

“Zionism never aspired to govern another people,” he says.

Palestinian Authority

Unilateral annexation also would weaken the credibility of the doctrine President Abbas has advocated for the last 15 years – negotiating a peace with Israel while rejecting an armed conflict.  

“This is a big strike at the strategy that the current Palestinian leadership is promoting: a two-state solution through peaceful negotiations,’’ says Ghassan Khatib, a professor at Birzeit University in the West Bank and a former Palestinian Authority spokesman. “This is what [Mr. Abbas] stands for politically, and it’s not working. So, he is in big trouble because this is creating a big gap between the public and the leadership in Palestine.”

Before gaining statehood, the Palestinians would have to meet a number of Israeli and U.S. prerequisites, such as disarming Hamas and recognizing Israel as a Jewish state. Few expect the Palestinian leadership to comply with such conditions.

Mr. Abbas, who wasn’t invited to the White House rollout of the plan, is already in a weak position. Nearly two-thirds of Palestinians want the Palestinian Authority president, originally elected in 2005 to a five-year term, to resign.

Moreover, many Arab governments in the region are focused inward, and on developing fledgling ties with Israel, rather than focused on the Palestinian cause. That said, the Arab League decision Saturday to explicitly reject the Trump plan was a positive surprise for the Palestinian leadership. Mr. Abbas’ defiance has also won praise from politicians in his rival, Hamas, the Islamist militant group that controls the Gaza Strip.

Annexation, however, is liable to undermine security coordination between Israel and the Palestinian security forces. It could also prompt a spike in unrest in the Palestinian territories – scenarios that could lead to the unraveling of the Palestinian government.

“The Palestinian leadership has to ask themselves difficult questions about how they can effectively counter this plan,’’ says Tareq Baconi, an analyst on Israel and the Palestinians at the International Crisis Group. “The present trajectory is very much moving away from any kind of viable Palestinian state.”

Analysts believe annexation could spur unrest in Jordan, which has a Palestinian majority, and threaten the stability of the monarchy, which has been a quiet strategic partner of Israel.

Legal status

Unlike East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights, which Israel annexed and are under Israeli civil law, the West Bank is under the legal regime of Israel’s military government.

Many observers, however, consider Israel’s policy of promoting settlement expansion as a de facto annexation. Mr. Baconi notes that Israel’s government has taken steps in recent years that effectively advanced de jure annexation, such as passing a law allowing settlement housing on Palestinian property to be retroactively legalized. 

On Tuesday, European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell warned that annexation of the West Bank, if implemented, “could not pass unchallenged.” Indeed, the Palestinians could use annexation to challenge Israel in international forums and in international courts.

The International Criminal Court is already mulling the merits of a potential war crimes suit against Israel for actions in Gaza and the West Bank; annexation would likely strengthen the case, says Michael Sfard, an Israeli human rights lawyer who has represented Palestinians in the West Bank against the government.

Annexation would complicate cooperation with countries whose policy it is to differentiate between Israel and the occupied territories and “eliminate the only possible defense from the charge of apartheid – that the discrimination of a dominated group is temporary,” he says.

Israeli politics

For years, residents of the settlements have lobbied Israel’s government to pursue annexation, hanging roadside signs in the West Bank calling for “sovereignty.” The settler right wing considers annexation a recreation of the Jewish people’s historic presence in biblical Judea and Samaria.

Establishing a Palestinian state on 70% of the West Bank, on the other hand, is viewed as blasphemy. After Mr. Netanyahu backed down from immediate annexation, settler leader David Elhayani complained in the newspaper Makor Rishon that the prime minister was tricked by President Trump.

For now, annexation and the Trump plan have shot to the top of the Israeli election campaign. Gideon Saar, a member of Mr. Netanyahu’s Likud party, called on the prime minister to take advantage of the Trump declaration and “speedily” annex the settlements.

Surveys by Israel’s Channel 12 and 13 showed about half of the public in support.

Israeli peace activists warn it would create an apartheid reality and destroy any prospects for an agreement. They argue that while the Trump plan’s aspiration for peace, a two-state solution, and territorial swaps are laudable, the road map for implementation is disturbing.

“It has nothing to do with a two-state solution,” says Yariv Oppenheimer, the former director of Peace Now, at a demonstration against the agreement Saturday. “Its purpose is to continue the occupation and make it permanent.”

If a modern-day Paul Revere were to gallop through cyberspace yelling, “The Russians are coming!” Jaan Priisalu would be among the first to jump to the rescue.

A taciturn information technology expert who seems to make some of his best decisions in the sauna, Mr. Priisalu is no stranger to battling Russian cyber warriors. When Russian hackers were believed to carry out the world’s first politically motivated cyberattack against a nation in 2007, leaving large parts of Estonian society electronically dark, Mr. Priisalu was in charge of IT risk management at the country’s leading bank. Today, he is a researcher at Tallinn University of Technology. On a dreary November day he is sitting in his office in red polka-dot socks and slippers when the phone rings. It is Andrus Padar, commander of Estonia’s Cyber Defense League, asking if he could join in an exercise this week.

With a shoestring budget of about $300,000 to cover office space and a few staff members, Mr. Padar depends on hundreds of volunteers like Mr. Priisalu who are willing to spend their evenings and weekends bolstering the country’s cyberdefenses. They do everything from giving talks at elementary schools to planning elaborate simulated cybercrises so government officials can refine their response skills.

These volunteers are affectionately dubbed the “nerd reserves,” and come mainly from the vibrant IT community in Estonia, which developed the original software behind Skype. But they also include teachers, lawyers, utility employees – even a man of the cloth. 

“They fight for free, basically, and that’s the beauty of doing it of free will,” says Aivar Sarapik, an Estonian Orthodox priest who has served as chaplain for the unit since its inception. “You protect your lifestyle, you protect your value system, you protect who you are.”

These are the modern-day minutemen of Estonia. They’re part of a broader electronic bulwark this Baltic nation has built since the 2007 attacks, which were a prototype of 21st-century conflict that Russia has since refined and deployed in numerous Western democracies. With the help of everyone from academics to ambassadors, military officers to election officials, Estonia has emerged as a model for other countries keen to counter Moscow’s meddling. 

According to experts here and in Washington, Russia aims to undermine Western democracies both to boost its own global standing and to thwart democratic aspirations at home. It tries to do this by sowing doubt about democracy, undermining public trust in democratic leaders and institutions, and dividing nations and alliances. The foreign intruders have proved they can infiltrate everything from voting lists to banking systems and personal laptops.

Alfredo Sosa/Staff

“[Russia], looking to delegitimize or create fear, confusion, and doubt about our societies, is working across the globe and we know that [it isn’t] shy about recycling effective methods.” – Liisa Past, chief national cyberrisk officer for Estonia’s National Security and Defense Coordination Unit

“The adversary, looking to delegitimize or create fear, confusion, and doubt about our societies, is working across the globe and we know that they’re not shy about recycling effective methods,” says Liisa Past, chief national cyberrisk officer for Estonia’s National Security and Defense Coordination Unit.

As the U.S. heads into the 2020 election, looking to better protect itself against the Russian interference that roiled the country four years ago, Estonia offers key lessons. This tiny country on the fringes of Russia has become known around the world for both its cybersecurity expertise and secure online voting system. But its greatest defenses may not be technical at all. They lie in a way of thinking – a shared understanding that erecting a protective cyber wall requires alertness but not alarmism as well as an urgency and unity of purpose that impel coordination across diverse sectors. 

“The lessons we learned from 2007 can apply to all countries, irrespective of size,” says Marina Kaljurand, an Estonian cybersecurity expert and former ambassador to the United States now serving in the European Parliament. “For the U.S., my suggestion would be not to wait until a cyber 9/11 but to come together much earlier.”

On a spring evening in 2007, Heli Tiirmaa-Klaar had finally just gotten her children to bed around 11 p.m. when the phone rang. 

It was one of her husband’s colleagues, who demanded that she wake him up. There was a water cannon, used for riot control, standing in front of their European Commission office downtown, he said.

You are dreaming, she recalls telling him. The capital had been quiet since Estonia regained its independence from the Soviet Union in 1991. 

Alfredo Sosa/Staff

Heli Tiimaa-Klaar, Estonia’s ambassador at large for cybersecurity, stands at the Victims of Communism Memorial in Tallinn. The memorial honors the Estonian people who suffered under Soviet terror.

But sure enough, protesters were smashing store windows, setting fires, and chanting “Russia, Russia, Russia!” Most of them were from Estonia’s sizable ethnic Russian minority, and were upset by the Estonian government’s decision to move a controversial Soviet-era monument, known as the Bronze Soldier, from a prominent location downtown to a military cemetery not far away. The larger backdrop was growing tension between a resurgent Russia under President Vladimir Putin and NATO, which – thanks to Estonia’s admittance as a member three years earlier – now had a presence on Russia’s doorstep. 

At first, the protests appeared to be a spontaneous outburst by local youths. But shortly thereafter a wave of coordinated cyberattacks disabled government websites, newspapers, and banks. Estonians quickly became convinced that Russia was behind the digital assaults, especially when Russian law enforcement authorities refused to cooperate with their Estonian counterparts in identifying the culprits. 

“We decided we just have to become much more resilient, and make sure, in case something similar happens again, we will be ready,” says Ms. Tiirmaa-Klaar, Estonia’s ambassador at large for cyberdiplomacy, who was then at the Ministry of Defense. 

Alfredo Sosa/Staff

The Bronze Soldier, a monument honoring the Soviet sacrifice during World War II, was moved from downtown Tallinn to this less central location at a cemetery in 2007 because Estonians saw it as a symbol of Soviet occupation. The move, however, caused rioting by ethnic Russians and triggered a wave of Russian cyberattacks.

Estonians are well aware of Moscow’s attempts to manipulate and deceive them. As Soviet citizens, they were subjected to everything from TV broadcasts full of propaganda to more covert shenanigans: Estonians have a museum in an upscale hotel in Tallinn that shows, among other things, how the KGB famously embedded listening devices in plates at the hotel restaurant. 

“We have 60 years of experience in reading between the lines and speaking between the lines,” says Tõnu Tammer, head of the computer emergency response team at the Estonian Information System Authority. “It’s actually our dear adversaries that keep those skills honed for the younger generation.”

Social media and the internet have opened new ways for Russia to infiltrate networks and disseminate disinformation with vastly more speed and scope. U.S. intelligence agencies have blamed a Russian cyberespionage team for penetrating the computer networks of the Democratic National Committee in the run-up to the 2016 American presidential election. Later, Russian hackers gained access to thousands of private emails of Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman, John Podesta. More broadly, U.S. intelligence assessed that Russia had targeted election systems in all 50 states, though a 2019 Senate Intelligence report said there was no evidence that voting had been affected. (Editor’s note: This paragraph was corrected to clarify the impact of Russian hacking on the election.)

Alfredo Sosa/Staff

KGB surveillance artifacts are displayed in the Hotel Viru in Tallinn, Estonia. The Soviet-built hotel, the only place foreigners were allowed to stay during the Soviet era, was heavily bugged by the KGB.

Russia is also the prime suspect behind one of the costliest cyberattacks, NotPetya, which targeted Ukraine in 2017 and then spread to 64 countries, causing an estimated $10 billion in damage. 

Estonia, however, was virtually untouched by this attack. Across society – from Mr. Padar’s volunteer Cyber Defense League to grandparents being taught to use more complicated passwords – the country has honed a robust civilian and government network to protect the young democracy against foreign intrusion.

It has also helped bolster its neighbors, in part because of an idea for joint cyber exercises hatched in one of Mr. Priisalu’s sauna sessions with a couple of Swedes. 

Several years after 9/11, when Estonia joined NATO, it proposed hosting a NATO center of excellence for cyberdefense. The initial response from other members: Cyber? We’re in the middle of helping to fight a war in Afghanistan. Plus, there was doubt that tiny Estonia could be of much help. But after the 2007 attacks, NATO agreed to back the initiative.

Alfredo Sosa/Staff

“Do we lack people and resources? Yes. We’re a country of 1.3 million people. [But] 2007 made people realize that it is important and maybe [Estonians] know what they’re doing.” – Col. Jaak Tarien, who oversees a NATO cyberdefense center in Tallinn

“Do we lack people and resources? Yes. We’re a country of 1.3 million people,” says Col. Jaak Tarien, who today oversees the NATO Cooperative Cyber Defense Center of Excellence (CCDCOE) in Tallinn. But, he says, “2007 made people realize that it is important and maybe [Estonians] know what they’re doing.” 

Today the CCDCOE hosts the largest live-fire cyberdefense exercise in the world. Known as Locked Shields, the annual drill draws more than 1,200 participants from nearly 30 countries.

Last April, the scenario involved a coordinated series of cyberattacks during a national election, seeking to manipulate how the public perceived the election results, and also affecting vital services. The exercise provided strategic decision-makers and technical experts the opportunity to learn to work more closely in a time of crisis.

Although Estonia itself hasn’t faced a major attack on its voting system, it has been vigilant in defending its electoral machinery. The government offers free cybersecurity screenings for political parties and trains candidates how to recognize and avoid breaches. Estonian security specialists try to break into the country’s voting system about a year ahead of elections. Any vulnerabilities that are discovered are reported to the public, along with what’s being done to fix them. Thanks in part to the heightened trust such transparency affords, more than 40% of Estonians now vote online. 

That’s made possible by a system created in the 1990s, which gives each citizen a unique digital identification. A smart ID card with a chip, together with personal identification numbers, acts as a double authentication system that has enabled Estonia to offer nearly all government services online. New parents can order birth certificates from their laptops or access their children’s school system, parties can sign contracts, and patients’ medical prescriptions are issued electronically.

Alfredo Sosa/Staff

The Old Town section of Tallinn, Estonia – parts of which date back to the 13th century – is one of the best-preserved medieval sites in Europe.

When a security lapse was discovered in the country’s digital ID card system, the “nerd reserves” were brought in to help, demonstrating the practical assistance that goes along with their efforts to raise awareness among citizens and officials alike. “It’s very important that we not only don’t scare them ... we must also offer solutions,” says Mr. Padar.

To bolster the country’s electronic security, the nerd reserves stage exercises similar to the NATO cyberdefense center’s. In one drill, members of the government’s Cabinet confronted a Chernobyl-like disaster. They were told that sensors along the eastern border with Russia flashed readings showing a rapid rise in nuclear radiation, ostensibly due to a Russian nuclear plant malfunction. Unknown to the participants, however, there was no radiation. Instead, a cyberattack had relayed the false readings. 

“The purpose was to create ... a mess and the government need to think through what to do,” says Mr. Padar.

At one point during the exercise, cameras that were allowing outside observers to watch the Cabinet members’ response were shut off by the government security service. Was that part of the drill or because officials didn’t want details of the exercise to get out? “I can’t tell you more,” says Mr. Priisalu, cryptically.

In December 2018, a story circulated on Russian social media with the hashtag #ESTexitEU. It purported to show someone beating up an ethnic Russian in the Estonian capital. The attack supposedly took place in a district of Tallinn called Lasnamäe, where ethnic Russians makeup nearly two-thirds of the 118,000 residents. 

Alfredo Sosa/Staff

Soviet-era housing is a common sight in the Tallinn neighborhood of Lasnamäe. About 26% of the population of Estonia is ethnic Russian.

The implication was clear: The Russian-speaking minority in Estonia isn’t safe.

But a propaganda watchdog group called Propastop found the posts suspicious. One volunteer, who didn’t want to be named for security reasons, sat on his couch night after night after his children had gone to bed to track down the story’s origins. Through his and other people’s efforts, Propastop revealed that there was more snow in the photo than there had been on the ground the day of the alleged beating – implying the location or the date, or both, were fabricated. Propastop and investigative journalists Holger Roonemaa and Martin Laine also found that the people running the accounts on Facebook and Vkontakte, a popular social media site in Russia, were using fake names and profile photos. Presented with this evidence, Facebook shut down numerous accounts by mid-January. But the Vkontakte groups are still open.

“You can’t do anything, just observe,” says the volunteer. 

This is another way the Russians try to meddle, not only in Estonia but in the U.S. as well: spreading disinformation. In fact, America is likely even more vulnerable to this type of manipulation than cyberattacks, and it’s an area where Estonians – who lived for decades under Soviet occupation – may have the most to teach Americans.

In the U.S., Russia has sought to exploit ideological divisions between Democrats and Republicans, liberals and conservatives, inciting heated conversations on Twitter or Facebook from a troll factory in St. Petersburg. The trolls focus on hot-button issues, such as immigration or racism, the latter of which constituted some two-thirds of fake Russian account activity around the 2016 election. They performed their dark arts not so much through the blunt instrument of propaganda, as in Soviet days, but much more subtly through fake social media accounts that often appeared sympathetic to popular causes, such as Black Lives Matter. 

In Estonia, by contrast, Russia seeks to exploit ethnic divisions. But the tactics are the same – trying to divide from within. In 2014, after Russia annexed Crimea – an area of Ukraine with an ethnic Russian majority – many outsiders looked at Estonia’s eastern flank with its high concentration of ethnic Russians and wondered if it would be next.

CHRISTA CASE BRYANT/THE CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR

Ivan Polynin, a native Russian who moved to the eastern Estonian city of Narva in 2016, encountered strong support for Russian President Vladimir Putin among the many ethnic Russians who live here. They listen to and are influenced by Russian state TV broadcasts.

But Sven Sakkov, director of the International Center for Defense and Security (ICDS) in Tallinn, says Estonia is not easy prey for Russian propaganda.

“For us, Russian information campaigns, information warfare, influence operations, fake news is not something that just happened in 2014,” he says, noting that because of its long history with such interference, the country is now “quite well inoculated.”

There is one possible exception, though: Lasnamäe. Dmitri Teperik, who studies national resilience in the face of hostile foreign influence activities at ICDS, estimates that while only 7% to 9% of Estonian society could be destabilized on ethnic or linguistic grounds, it’s enough to create trouble.

“Even small groups can dictate some general or major shifts in society, especially if these minor groups are backed or supported by foreign actors,” says Mr. Teperik, a Russian-speaking Estonian who co-founded a nongovernmental organization designed to increase ethnic Russians’ enlistment in the military. “The gunpowder is definitely here. What we are missing, fortunately, is the spark.”

In 2018, Estonia’s Government Office started a strategic communications team, which monitors the three main Russian TV channels as well as online media, and last year hosted an inaugural media literacy week. Students in Estonian-speaking high schools all take a required 35-hour media and manipulation class. Strategic communication adviser Siim Kumpas says that efforts are underway to extend the class to Russian-language schools as well.

Alfredo Sosa/Staff

Merle Maigre of CybExer, an Estonian cybersecurity firm, says Estonian’s model is not plug-and-play but offers a comprehensive approach to preparing for attacks that others can emulate.

The State Electoral Office is also involved, running a working group that meets daily during election campaigns to monitor media and identify any attempts to influence elections through disinformation.

In a media climate with several Russian-language outlets that are considered propaganda machines, Estonia has allowed them to continue to operate, but has refused to give their reporters access to certain government events and high-level officials. Estonian authorities would also like to see social media platforms better regulate political ads.

“If citizens don’t know who is whispering in their ear, then you don’t have a genuine political discussion but you have this post-modernist hodgepodge of yelling out loud,” says Ms. Past, the government’s chief national cyberrisk officer. “Ever since the late 18th century, we have put all our effort into building a society that is better than that,” she says, referring to Western democracies.

The question still looms: To what extent are these efforts applicable to the U.S.? Some, such as implementing a unified education curriculum similar to Estonia’s, with its media and manipulation class, wouldn’t be easy. It would require the buy-in of 50 states and thousands of local school boards, says Bret Schafer, social media analyst for the Alliance for Securing Democracy at the German Marshall Fund in Washington, who has visited Estonia twice. 

Similarly, protecting election machinery against cyberattacks the way Estonians do would be difficult. Estonia has one unified State Electoral Office. The U.S. puts decisions about voting machines and methods in the hands of thousands of state and local officials. “I’m not sure our country’s model can immediately be imported,” says Merle Maigre, executive vice president of government relations at CybExer, an Estonian cybersecurity firm.

Yet there is plenty the U.S. can draw from Estonia’s model. Ms. Kaljurand says Estonia learned three key lessons from 2007 that can be applied to countries of any size: putting the topic high on the political agenda, establishing a clear division of responsibilities, and creating a multistakeholder model of security that involves not only the government but also the private sector, academia, and civil society. 

The U.S. has taken important steps in this direction, classifying election systems as critical infrastructure, improving coordination between various government agencies, and better supporting state and local election officials. But it has no overarching national strategy to counter foreign influence, despite various agencies tackling different aspects of the issue, according to a 2019 report by the Homeland Security Advisory Council. Mr. Schafer notes that there is no strategic communications group like the one Mr. Kumpas is part of and “that’s a huge problem.” 

Still, Estonia is proof that such alertness can come from the people themselves. As a youth growing up in Soviet times, Mr. Padar – like many other young people – was influenced by the ubiquitous propaganda designed to produce good Soviet citizens. He yearned to become a soldier and defend the great homeland. But in high school, he started thinking more for himself, and found another way to serve – first as a police officer, and now as commander of the Cyber Defense League.

In the event of a crisis, not only will his volunteers spring into action as minutemen, but other techies in Estonia’s private sector will likely join in as well, says Mr. Sakkov. “I’m more than certain that they will basically call their friends and say, ‘How can I help?’”

This story was supported by a grant from the Renewing Democracy Fund of the Solutions Journalism Network.

Ben Margot/AP/File

California Attorney General Xavier Becerra speaks at a Nov. 6, 2019, media conference in San Francisco about California's new privacy law. As of Jan. 1, 40 million Californians now have digital privacy rights stronger than any seen before in the United States.

Passed unanimously by the state’s legislature in June 2018, the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) took effect on Jan. 1. Aimed at giving consumers in California more control over their personal data, the law could extend far beyond the Golden State’s borders.

“If we do this right in California,” said the attorney general, Xavier Becerra, in a November press conference, the state will “put the capital P back into privacy for all Americans.”

Critics of the law, which runs more than 10,000 words, say that it places unreasonable restrictions on businesses, and that it may impact California’s economy far more than what its advocates bargained for.

What does the law do?

California real estate developer Alastair Mactaggart spent $3 million collecting signatures for a ballot initiative, one whose popularity quickly gained steam amid news of high-profile privacy leaks. State lawmakers viewed the initiative as risky, stepped in to draft their own law, and Mr. Mactaggart withdrew the initiative.

The law requires businesses to tell consumers what information they are collecting about them, why they are collecting it, and who they are sharing it with. It grants customers the right to opt out of having their data collected and to have their information deleted, and it prohibits companies from reducing the quality of service for those who do so. It also makes it more difficult to gather data on people under 16. The legislation also makes it easier for consumers to sue companies for a data breach.

The CCPA affects California businesses that collect personal data from 50,000 people or more yearly or whose annual revenues top $25 million. A study conducted by the state’s Department of Justice estimated that it will impact between 15,000 and 400,000 businesses. Up to half of those are classified as “small” businesses. And even brick-and-mortar stores that do relatively little of their business online could still require CCPA compliance.

“This is not about the internet,” says Eric Goldman, a law professor at Santa Clara University School of Law who specializes in internet law. “This is about Joe’s Pizzeria.”

Why did the law come about now?

Since 2016, public animosity toward Silicon Valley has intensified, particularly in the wake of the Cambridge Analytica scandal, in which a U.K. political consulting firm working for the Trump campaign collected raw data from up to 87 million Facebook profiles.

“It’s impossible for consumers to ignore the constant flow of coverage of the missteps made by technology companies,” Professor Goldman says. “Consumers have lost trust in some of the major internet companies across all facets of their businesses.”

That said, while the law seems to be aimed directly at Facebook, it will have indirect effects on a wide range of businesses across the state, and, because so many global technology companies are based in California, the world.

Ironically, Facebook, which has more than $52 billion in cash on hand, can probably afford the costs of complying with the law. “Facebook is going to be just fine,” Professor Goldman says. “But it’s their competitors we should be worried about.”

How is the law apt to change privacy?

The effectiveness of this law and its long-term effects are hard to predict. The law has come under criticism from many privacy experts, including Professor Goldman, for being poorly thought out – it was rushed into existence in just seven days, with only modest revisions since. They have argued that it is difficult and expensive for businesses to comply with, and could result in poor handling of user data. Some critics have noted that the law could also violate the First Amendment.

And Mr. Mactaggart isn’t done. He has submitted a new ballot initiative that would beef up the existing law.

But the CCPA is nonetheless inspiring a number of state legislatures to mull tougher digital privacy laws; Nevada and Maine have already passed them. On the federal level, the Senate held a hearing in December to discuss a federal standard. A Democratic proposal, submitted by Sen. Maria Cantwell of Washington, would not supersede state laws but would make it easier for consumers to directly sue companies. The Republican framework, proposed by Sen. Roger Wicker of Mississippi, would preempt state data privacy laws.

One thing I’ve learned as a movie critic over the years is that a good actor will get me through a bad film. The movies right now might not be the best but the general level of acting in them is high. It’s been this way for a while. I suspect this is primarily because there are many more good actors than there are good roles for them to play. Lots of silk purses are being spun from a sow’s ear. 

Of course, the ideal is when actor and role are equally distinguished, and 2019, despite its unevenness, had its fair share of such matchups. Any year featuring tip-top work from the likes of Laura Dern, Antonio Banderas, Saoirse Ronan, Joe Pesci, and Brad Pitt – to name just a few of the more high-profile names – is OK by me.

A question often asked of movie critics is: What do you look for in a performance? What is your criteria for excellence?

Acting – like movie criticism, for that matter – is an art and not a science. I don’t go into a film with a checklist: Charisma, check. Looks, check. Believability, check. Acting is, or should be, an intuitive process, and there is nothing more enjoyable than those moments when an actor confounds my expectations and does something truly astonishing.

Overlooked genres

Take, for example, Lupita Nyong’o in “Us.” I was not a big fan of Jordan Peele’s overly ambitious shocker, but Nyongo’s dual role as a tremulous middle-class mom and her depraved double was a tour de force of the best kind. Her two guises showcased an entire range of feeling. It’s the kind of performance often overlooked at the Oscars because it’s the centerpiece of a horror film. Not “artistic” enough. True to form, Nyong’o was not cited by the academy (though she won the New York Film Critics Circle best actress award).  

Another type of performance often slighted by the academy is small-scale, unshowy acting in movies lacking a big commercial push. Such was the case this year with Octavia Spencer, whose supporting work as the besieged high school history teacher in “Luce” was among the most moving and nuanced acting I saw all year.

And then there’s Mary Kay Place, who, despite winning both the Los Angeles Film Critics Association and National Society of Film Critics awards for best actress in “Diane,” was shut out of contention at the Oscars. Place’s performance as a rural Pennsylvania mother who practically martyrs herself in service to others was one of the year’s finest. It will be remembered by those who saw it when flashier star turns are long forgotten. 

Another underseen performance that I trust will not be forgotten is Sienna Miller’s work in “American Woman,” a career best, in which she plays a righteous working-class mother who exasperates everyone around her. Miller doesn’t condescend to us by making her character “likable.” The part is thinly written but – such is the mysterious alchemy of acting – she gives it emotional levels it likely lacked on the page. 

Joel C Ryan/Invision/AP

Actors Winston Duke (left) and Lupita Nyong’o (center), and director Jordan Peele, pose for photographers upon arrival at the premiere of the film “Us” in London, March 14, 2019.

International choices

I was happy this year to see some marvelous work in films from abroad, especially Asia. As the lovelorn gangster’s moll who seeks retribution in “Ash Is Purest White,” Zhao Tao solidified her position as perhaps China’s finest actress. I’ve rarely seen a performance that melded as skillfully hardheartedness and vulnerability. I appreciated Kang-ho Song as the corrupt patriarch in “Parasite,” a tricky, darkly comic piece of performing that never settled into a single mood.

Sometimes actors go completely against type and expand our notions of what they can accomplish. Throughout his career, Banderas, most notably in the films of Pedro Almodóvar, has specialized in sinuously explosive characters. In Almodóvar’s “Pain and Glory,” he plays a haggard, furrowed film director, and the shock is in how resonant his performance is. All of Banderas’ characteristically outward energy is directed inward this time, and it’s more powerful than ever. 

Something similar happens with Pesci as the mob boss in “The Irishman.” Pesci is best remembered as the nattery gangster with the hair-trigger temper in Martin Scorsese’s “Goodfellas.” This time out, all that volatility has been subsumed. A world-weariness clings to his character. He sets in motion the violence that others carry out.

In that same film, Al Pacino, playing Jimmy Hoffa, is at his expansive best. Pacino’s career has had a fascinating arc: The robust stillnesses of his Michael Corleone in “The Godfather” films has given way over the years to an equally forceful flamboyance. He’s one of the few actors of his generation who still clearly loves to act.

Teamwork, dreamwork

It’s always fun to see terrific ensemble acting, and “Little Women” – featuring Ronan, Florence Pugh, Emma Watson, Timothée Chalamet, Meryl Streep, Eliza Scanlen, and Dern – provides that in surplus. Ronan’s Jo March prompts the question: Is there anything this 25-year-old phenomenon can’t play? Dern’s compassionate matriarch is especially pungent when set beside her spiky divorce lawyer in “Marriage Story.” Equally good, totally different. 

Many other 2019 performances graced the good and not so good films in which they appeared. 

As Fred Rogers in “A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood,” Tom Hanks turned what might have been a stunt into something soulful. Pitt in “Once Upon a Time ... in Hollywood” proves yet again that a bona fide movie star can also be a first-rate actor. Joaquin Phoenix in “Joker” did a psychological deep-dive that recalled (as it was supposed to) Robert De Niro’s Travis Bickle in “Taxi Driver.”

There’s much more: Jamie Foxx and Tim Blake Nelson in “Just Mercy,” Christian Bale in “Ford v Ferrari,” Adam Driver in “Marriage Story,” Anthony Hopkins and Jonathan Pryce in “The Two Popes.” 

These days especially, good acting is often the best reason to go to the movies.

Reuters

Opposition supporters celebrate in Lilongwe, Malawi, after a court annulled the May 2019 presidential vote that declared Peter Mutharika a winner.

In 2020, African nations will hold at least a dozen presidential or general elections. This will be a big test for the continent’s steady if uneven progress in democracy. So far the year is off to a good start.

On Monday, Malawi set the second precedent in sub-Saharan Africa of a court annulling a presidential election. The country’s top judges ruled that the integrity of a vote last year had been “seriously compromised.” In a 500-page decision read over 10 hours from the bench, they noted – among other irregularities – the frequent use of white correction fluid to alter vote tallies. They ordered a new election by July 2 and urged parliament to replace the electoral commission.

Around much of Africa, people will be inspired by the courage of Malawi’s court in overturning the reelection of President Peter Mutharika. In 2017, Kenya’s Supreme Court also annulled the election of a sitting president over voting anomalies. It too ordered a rerun. Together the two rulings will help promote the legitimacy of separation of powers in governance and the need for checks on powers, such as an independent judiciary, journalists, and civil society groups, not to mention neutral bureaucrats in managing elections.

Corruption remains a particular problem in Africa. Of the 50 countries considered to be most corrupt by Transparency International, 29 are on the continent. It is rare for a candidate who loses an election to ask a court to determine if the electoral process was fair.

Many rulers rely on rigging the system to stay in power. Yet, as a result of international pressure and the rising aspirations for clean democracy among young Africans, the continent is seeing more elections that are competitive and conducted under rule of law. “The days of politicians playing fast and loose with electoral law are clearly numbered,” writes South African analyst Gary Van Staden, after the Malawi ruling. Perhaps it will be judges who, in demanding the highest civic principles in elections, lead the way.