Challenges to national defence in contemporary geopolitical situation

The objective of this study is to review current research on knowledge management in military and to identify the main streams where research is performed. Knowledge in the military is perceived as a tool and means for effectiveness and has been analyzed from diverse standpoints. Accordingly, the studies in this field take different paradigms and represent the perspective of management, social networking, organizational psychology, information technology and other fields towards the phenomena of knowledge in the military and its management practices. Although previous studies on knowledge management in military have presented some literature overviews, this study is the first to provide a systematic analysis using content mapping.

Organizational processes are often described as being “top-down” or “bottom-up”. At the level of EU integration relations between EU and member-state institutions can also be conceptualized in these terms. European integration is based on decisions made by representatives of its member-states and member-states have a large degree of discretion in the implementation of EU policies. This gives off an appearance of a “bottom-up” quality to pan-European policy. But when it comes to part and parcel of public administration many national government agencies can only perceive this process “top-down”. The complexity of policy design process and absence of co-ordination of how national agencies go about their business means that policy adoption is seldom straightforward across member-states. Once policies are set in motion, there are limited possibilities of review stemming from the “bottom”. In some sense, this is the story of the road to Brexit. The paper claims that current challenges to European integration may in part be attributed to this institutional setup. This paper revisits the concept of European Administrative Space to see if it can be framed in terms of “bottom-up” integration, whereby essentially member states would be encouraged to test their proposed national reforms from the point of view of EUfriendliness. Proliferation of such a practice would not require any major legal change or governance process standardization. With proper monitoring the practice could augment the existing international co-operation between government agencies by opening venues for cost sharing, and streamlining the “top-down” policy decisions once political will becomes available.

The articles analyses the penetration of social media through personal use into daily life and the relation of this phenomenon to national security. A survey of Lithuanian higher-school students aged 18-29 was conducted according to quantitative research methodology. Young people actively use social networks for various purposes (personal, learning, work, recreation). Statistically, each individual, aged 18-29, has personal profiles on four social networking sites, yet most often does not adequately evaluate and link the use of social networks with possible national security threats and risk factors. Less than two-thirds of young people have heard something of possible threats and risk factors; however, the impact of social media on national security is not considered significant. Thus, it seems that young people lack information about real threats presented by social networks to both personal data storage and national security.

Scientific researches were carried out when deepening into the problems connected with the fields of human resources and their formation, possibilities and activity perspectives. The aim of these researches was to clear out management presumptions of human resources formation influencing regularity and entrepreneurship orientated towards up-to-date problems as well as to present their formation possibilities. In the article the object of the research was analysed at both general and organizational levels. Following the results of the carried out researches, management presumptions of human resources formations were grounded, the characteristic of the competences of the alternation, as one of the processes in the processes of the development and progress of system elements, was presented in the article. The systematic approach towards entrepreneurship as well as towards the groups of factors influencing it (from the management viewpoint) was emphasized in the article. The further directions of the researches of human resources formation were directed in the article.

Trending processes in certain regions of Africa, Middle East and Asia forced many people to immigrate to Europe. After arriving to Europe’s periphery, migrants apply for the asylum, or move to the predetermined countries. However, some circumstances encourages refugees to migrate illegally. As Europe is mainly covered by land, the illegal immigrants use land transport as a mean for movement across the Europe. 27% of illegal immigrants use road freight transport. There are some evidences that intrusions into the road freight transport units became better organized and planned. European road freight companies are taking preventive measures to reduce or avoid such incidences; however private sector is not able to control the risks of illegal immigrants through its preventive measures alone. The present paper discusses conceptual model which serve as initial background for the cooperation between private and public sector and joining their efforts towards elaboration of common actions necessary for solving problem of intrusions of illegal immigrants.