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.

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.

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.