Challenges to national defence in contemporary geopolitical situation

Crime has been a common phenomenon for a long time, but its scope and operation are changing, and this is largely dependent on technological progress. We dealt with the development of crime and its negative effects in Poland during the political transformation process that took place after 1989. At that time, law enforcement agencies were not fully able to cope with this practice, and society painfully felt its effects. Many times, innocent people have faced several types of criminal acts. The main reasons that could have influenced the development of crime were social disorganization, lowering of the standard of living, unemployment, as well as visible and constantly deepening social differentiation. The most important task of law enforcement agencies protecting state borders is to provide citizens with basic forms of security so that they feel peaceful in their area of residence. The services should cooperate with each other at every level of securing state borders and protect citizens against any threats. The aim of the article is to analyze the impact of crimes on state security and the role of the Border Guard in securing the state border. The Border Guard plays a key role in this respect, therefore it should have the widest possible range of instruments enabling it to fulfill its duties in this area. This service proves every day that it has an enormous impact on the sense of security of citizens, and counteracting various threats, including crime, is a key element of the security of our country.

The methodological foundations of the formation of analytical support for public administration of cybersecurity have been improved. Based on a combination of hierarchical and non-hierarchical clustering methods using the IBM SPSS Statistics package, the country’s regions have been grouped into four clusters, which is the basis for adjusting the priorities of the state cybersecurity policy, a well-grounded approach when choosing means and instruments of influence at the regional level. In modern doctrine and practice of international law, the issues of qualification of cyber warfare remain controversial. There are approaches to justify the application of international humanitarian and criminal law. The most justified, in our opinion, is the qualification of cyber warfare as a violation of the UNO Charter and the use of force, and in some cases – the crime of aggression. The substantive rules of the institution of international cooperation in the fight against cybercrime determine the special principles of this kind of cooperation, the criminalization of certain types of illegal acts, as well as institutional mechanisms and capacity building. The system of international combating cybercrime is based on the principles of technical neutrality, multi-stakeholderism (public-private partnerships), as well as the equivalence of human rights online and offline. In the future, cybercrime will be associated with the use of innovative technologies. As it has been established by the example of the Internet of things, the latest technology, as a general rule, is included in the scope of existing international agreements on cybercrime, but there is no special regulation for them. We propose formal consolidation of the provision on “emergent technologies” in the texts of international legal acts in the field of combating cybercrime. First of all, this concerns the future UNO Convention on the fight against cybercrime, which should also provide for an additional body, such as the T-CY Committee under the Council of Europe Convention, which will provide clarification on the application of the agreement in specific changed circumstances.

The authors have investigated the features of legal support for cybersecurity in some of the leading countries of the world, have established the organizational basis for its support, as well as the main aspects of NATO and the EU’s activities and standards in this area. In particular, the essence of the concept of cybersecurity is determined by referring to the views of both foreign scientists and Ukrainian scientists, and fixing this definition in normative documents of international importance (international standard ISO/IEC 27032:2012). Actual strategic goals in the direction of ensuring cybersecurity in countries such as France, the UK, the United States, as well as the settlement of these issues at the legislative level in Ukraine are highlighted. It has been established which state bodies operate in the indicated countries, whose powers include ensuring cybersecurity. Attention is paid to the settlement of cybersecurity and cyber protection issues at the international level, in particular at the EU and NATO levels. Particular attention is paid to NATO standards – TEMPEST. The content of the norms of the current legislation of Ukraine in the field of ensuring cybersecurity and the nature of the priority tasks of the National Cyber Security Coordination Center under the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine are disclosed, which are normatively enshrined in the relevant Regulation. The features of the regulatory and organizational support of cybersecurity in some leading countries of the world and in Ukraine are structured.

In terms of sustainable development, various forms of partnership are an important prerequisite for the development of companies, especially small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Clusters are considered to be an effective form of support and innovation development for SMEs. Thus, enterprises working as a part of clusters are more efficient, flexible and resistant to external influences than large and hierarchical organizations. Clusters often arise spontaneously through the activities of local stakeholders who want to benefit from the synergy of the factors in the region, such as the existence of suppliers and customers, skilled labour force, specific resources and infrastructure. There are more than 20 clusters operating in the Slovak Republic. The majority of cluster members are SMEs. SMEs have many specificities and their engagement with clusters is influenced by various factors. For instance, many SMEs are often not sufficiently innovative or find it difficult to implement the results of their research and development into practical and successful innovation in the market. Bearing in mind the conditions of sustainable development, the authors examined the reasons why SMEs got engaged with clusters and enhanced their further development in terms of competitiveness. Moreover, the authors placed emphasis on their ability to innovate their products, technologies and/or services. Attention was also paid to the increased number of joint projects in the field of business, new market placement options and access to new information, as well as the acquisition of new partners, and employment growth in the regions in which these enterprises operate. The purpose of the paper was to identify the most relevant reasons why SMEs got engaged with clusters in terms of sustainable development. In order to achieve this purpose, an empirical study was carried out. The results were evaluated by quantitative tools of statistics (percentage, average values, standard deviation, chi-square test and Cramér’s V). The results showed that the most important reasons that made SMEs’ engage with clusters were entry to new markets and getting new partners.

Lately a lot of attention has been given to legal regulation of cybersecurity. This article will review legal regulation of cybersecurity in Lithuania. Historical retrospective of legal regulation of cybersecurity in Lithuania will be discussed, strategic Lithuanian cybersecurity documents will be analysed, and the Law on Cybersecurity of the Republic of Lithuania will be analysed and evaluated. After a comparative analysis of cybersecurity strategies and laws and a review of legal regulation of cybersecurity in Lithuania, gaps of law-making and of other measures were distinguished, and corresponding conclusions were made. The adoption of the new Law on Cybersecurity, which regulates many important institutes, is evaluated positively. But with regard to the current legal regulation on cybersecurity in Lithuania additional measures are necessary (functions of institutions that formulate cybersecurity policy and perform control functions have not been detailed and distinguished, also functions of the Lithuanian national Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT) are not foreseen in the Law on Cybersecurity, etc.).