Generolo Jono Žemaičio Lietuvos karo akademija

The Russian Federation, with its plans to regain influence over former Soviet bloc countries, currently constitutes the main military danger for the EU and NATO. Because the war is so close to the EU’s borders, European allies have every reason to increase army financing instead of fuelling a transatlantic disagreement about burden sharing. This article deals with the question of whether the high strategic threat posed by Russia has increased military spending among European allies and decreased free-riding practices after 2014. To analyse this problem, we applied Spearman’s Rank Correlation test and then made a comparative analysis of 21 countries that are both EU and NATO members. Our results confirmed that European allies did not react in the same way to the Russian threat. We proved that strategic factors played a key role in the majority of Eastern European members of NATO, but not across Western European allies.

Foreign language competences for the military personnel of Lithuania and NATO are essential in sustaining National Security of the alliance especially by effectively performing their military duties that include not only specific military art but also administrative and managemental. The Military Academy of Lithuania is a unique higher educational institution that prepares specialists in administration, management, and other fields. Therefore, being a cadet of the Academy, he/she acquires all the necessary competences to obtain proficiency in these fields. However, the cadets of the Academy considerably need foreign language competences so that they could actively, successfully, and professionally conduct their duties not only locally but also participating internationally in various military organizations and missions. Thus, in many cases military’s success in multinational operations very often depends on soldiers’ ability to communicate and express themselves in English or any other foreign language. In this “global village” it is practically inconceivable to make career without the knowledge of the English or any other foreign language. Thus, the aim of the research is to analyze the role of foreign language competencies acquired at the Lithuanian Military Academy where cadets obtain qualifications and foreign language competences needed for successful career making, National and International security. Therefore, the objective of the research is how theoretically and practically resolve the issue of developing new linguistic competences in foreign languages necessary for MAL cadets through analyses of the results of the questionnaire.

The article presents the problem of selected aspects of social security in Poland. A source of motivation to address the issue of social security for the author was the geopolitical situation related to the increase in the number of Muslim immigrants in Europe in recent years and the current COVID-19 epidemic. Counteracting the threats of a social nature has become one of the main activities of the state in the 21st century. Social security relates to a wide range of activities carried out by the public administration, NGOs and the local communities to guarantee decent living conditions. All of this constitutes a special kind of security, the lack of which directly interferes with the foundations of a nation’s existence. The aim of the study was to present issues related to the depopulation process affecting Poland and the demographically unfavourable changes taking place in modern families. The article presents the situation prior to the emergence of the COVID-19 epidemic. Undoubtedly, the COVID-19 epidemic will significantly affect social security, also in the demographic dimension. However, the overall impact of the epidemic can only be estimated after it has completely ceased. Conclusions included in the article were formulated on the basis of the analysis of statistical data of the Central Statistical Office. In addition, the author points out the consequences resulting from a long-term demographic collapse in the country.

Integration of the foreign trade sector of the national economy at the practical level is a reform of the bilateral trade regime through the liberalization of customs-tariff and non-tariff regulation, unification of the conditions for the international movement of production factors (investments, labor), and internal regulations that have an indirect impact on the development of foreign trade relations in order to eliminate economic barriers and the creation of a single market space between the parties to the integration association. Customs regulation of the foreign trade sector plays a key role in the national security system. At the present stage, this type of integration takes the form of concluding bilateral agreements on a deep and comprehensive free trade zone, which apply, inter alia, to environmental standards, government procurement, trade aspects of intellectual property rights, and the like. Based on the analysis, it is proved that the general structure of export supplies from Ukraine to the EU continues to be of a raw material nature: 52.8% of their value are agricultural raw materials, mineral resources, and primary processing products. The most adequate expansion of a deep and comprehensive free trade zone for modern realities is the vision of the role of the state as a systemic regulator, which, on the one hand, does not resort to the policy of isolationism, and on the other hand, acts as an active participant in the processes of international economic integration and entry into the most developed markets of the countries of the world, helping to increase the level of competitiveness of the foreign trade sector of the national economy.

Increasing emigration leads to the loss of investments in human capital as well as to the constraint of the knowledge economy via a huge leakage of demographical and intellectual capacity, hence threatening national security, social and economic stability. The target of the article is to examine the Lithuanian emigrants’ attitudes toward national security by analysing the relationship between emigration and national security, by disclosing the reasons for emigration, and by investigating the emigrants’ stance on national security. Long-term emigration lasting longer than a year has a greater impact on the country since most of long-term emigrants do not return. This is confirmed by the data revealing that most of emigrants live abroad for ten years or longer. Short-term (for less than a year) emigration can be qualified as a search for temporary financial improvement. It becomes evident amid financial crisis during which the loss of job opportunities and emigration leads to an increase in search for personal income and new experience abroad. Ninety four percent of participants of this research identify themselves as long-term emigrants, and 76% of them have a higher education. It points to the loss of educational investment and qualified labour force. The research reveals that most of survey respondents do not expect to return, for they do not trust the authorities. In addition, they deem that it is not reasonable to increase funding for the Lithuanian Armed Forces. The results of the study allow conclusions to be drawn that emigration is a real threat to Lithuania’s national security.

The paper provides an assessment of Poland’s efforts to address security threats over the last decade. The analysis is limited to energy security, environment protection, cybersecurity and information threats. Governmental strategies, policies and plans are confronted with the assessments of the Supreme Audit Office, academia and think tanks. The paper identifies common challenges related to development and implementation of the state’s response to traditional and emerging threats. It also discusses observed trade-offs and consequences of both actions and hesitance to act.

The article shows that global climate changes are already visible in Ukraine. At the same time the climatic consequences that Ukraine will face will not be so critical for population incubation, as, for example, in Africa and East Asia. In these regions, the catastrophic decline in drinking water and fertile land will stimulate migration to new territories for survival. Climate refugees, according to the authors, will become one of the main challenges to the national and food security of Ukraine and the European region.

As a result of the conducted study, there has been solved an important scientific problem of development of theoretical and methodological foundations of building international competitiveness in the conditions of globalization of innovation activity and creation of organizational and economic tools for support of national innovation system safety in global scientific and technological space. It has been established that innovation activity in Poland is characterized by structural deformation, institutional incompleteness, inconsistency and imbalance of technological, economic, social and value aspects, as a result of which innovation processes in the country have not gained sufficient scale and are not a significant factor of GDP growth. Problems of development of national innovation systems in Poland are caused, first of all, by an unsatisfactory state of financing of the scientific sphere, as a result of which the country has lost the system capable to effectively concentrate resources on priority strategic directions of innovation development. Based on a comparative economic and mathematical analysis of the impact of variables that determine the degree of inclusion of the country in global value chains, as well as diagnostics of the competitive environment of some countries, it has been stated that, except for IT, today Poland has no competitive advantages and preconditions for inclusion in global value chains. Considering the importance of the human development index, the Chinese model of innovation development is most acceptable for the country. Considering that in addition to the financial component, one of the main reasons for slowing down innovation activity in Poland is the lack of effective links between government, business and science, there has been justified the need to develop a government innovation policy based on a combination of direct and indirect methods of innovation support. There has been stressed the importance of building a common information and scientific space with Europe, which is possible in the conditions of creation of an open national innovation system.

By specifying the components of the investment environment as a national safety factor that is a result of the impact of two elements – investment potential and investment risks; we generated the list of components of the investment environment of national economies, which give complex characteristics of its social, economical, and institutional factors; and held a complex analysis of investment environment of 93 countries under the condition of global development that made it possible to identify the groups of the most attractive, attractive, mid-attractive, relatively attractive and unattractive countries upon the investment environment factors. The study made it possible to build an authorial ranking of the world countries’ investment environment, determined through the use of the human development integral index calculation methodology, adapted to investment activity. The hierarchy of the world countries was built upon the investment environment, in which Switzerland, Denmark, and Sweden are the leaders, while Mozambique, Mali, and Cameroon took the positions of the outsiders. The held study made it possible not only to carry out an analysis of asymmetric development of the world investment environment but also form the components of establishing an investment environment of the country, divide the countries into clusters upon the level of its development, mark factor loading, and offer the authorial ranking of the investment environment attractiveness. It was identified that developed countries also use state investment orders. The key role of the state in investment processes based on the example of the Japanese model requires a new, unprejudiced bureaucracy with an excellent reputation and uncompromising attitude to any manifestation of corruption.

The article investigates the specifics of the military-industrial complex functioning in Ukraine. Theoretical analysis has shown that the development of the country’s defense industry and the state of enterprise`s financial security within this industry have a dual impact on various components of the national security system: is a realization tool of the national interests, which in turn creates opportunities for its strengthening, and it can also be a source of threats to the state`s economic security by its components due to the accumulation of internal negative elements on enterprises (insufficient development and low level of military products competitiveness, obsolescence of fixed assets at enterprises, etc), as well as due to the low ability of enterprises to respond adequately to the challenges arising from changes in external conditions and factors (disruption of sustainable cooperation, increased competition between different military products in domestic and foreign markets, etc). The activity legal framework, legal status and structure of the state concern “Ukroboronprom” have been defined. The strategic growth priorities of defense industry of Ukraine have been cleared up. The financial security of enterprises operating in the defense industry can be ensured not only by using passive mechanisms to resist internal and external destructive factors, but also by mechanisms of efficient interaction with the environment. This in turn allows the company to avoid the need to invest capital in sources of raw materials, production or creation of distribution channels. Access to certain technologies or knowledge, the advantages of narrow specialization and the possibility of increasing consumer value, these all are important reasons for establishing strategic cooperation between different companies.