Challenges to national defence in contemporary geopolitical situation

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.

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 purpose of this article is to fulfil a comparative study of national security legislation, as well as the formation of conceptual foundation for its development and the elaboration of proposals for the improvement thereof with regard to Ukraine. The article analyses in comparative aspect the practice of the Republic of Lithuania as one of the European countries. In the context of globalization, the research focuses on international legal systems of both international and regional levels. The comparative legal analysis of the legal measures to maintain national security revealed similarities in theoretical and methodological approaches. In the study, the author’s definition of national security is given; and a typological model of the concept of national security is formed.

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.

Our paper is dealing with the issues of economic security and international relations in the European Union (EU) at the uncertain times of rethinking European security and sustainability in the face of Brexit and other challenges facing Europe.