Challenges to national defence in contemporary geopolitical situation

This article examines the impact of demographic trends and the regional distribution of high school graduates on student recruitment at the University of Defence. Based on data on the number of high school graduates in individual regions and information on applicants and enrolled students in full-time military study programs for the years 2021–2025, the article analyzes the relationship between the population potential of regions and actual interest in studying. The results reveal significant regional differences. The analysis confirms the existence of a relationship between the number of high school graduates and the number of admitted students, but also highlights the importance of other factors related to the specific nature of military studies. These findings provide a basis for targeted planning of the University of Defence’s recruitment and marketing activities.

This paper analyses projections of defence expenditure in the Bucharest Nine (B9) countries in the context of NATO’s new commitment from the 2025 Hague Summit. Based on historical data and national declarations, we model two scenarios for development through 2035: the baseline trend and national ambition. The results show significant polarization within B9 countries. While the countries of the northeastern flank (Poland, the Baltic states) are accelerating toward 5.5% of GDP, the countries of Central Europe and the Balkans are converging more toward the baseline level of 3.5%. The study identifies the fiscal limits of this transformation and structural differences in the implementation of the new alliance goals.).

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.

The paper has investigated the patterns of defence expenditure in the Baltic countries, such as Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia during the period of 2004-2018. Distribution of defence expenditure by main category has been analysed and the main tendencies have been provided. The author has done this by applying total expenditure and decomposition approaches. Firstly, the author has calculated the intensity rate of defence expenditure‘s structural changes in order to assess which country’s defence spending structure has been more dynamic over the period analysed. Secondly, Finger-Kreinin indicator has been used to compare defence expenditure distributions and determine their dissimilarities among the countries under consideration. The author believes that the research highlights key structural trends of defence expenditure and could be helpful for policy makers.

Ensuring the defence of freedom, independence, sovereignty, territorial integrity, and population belongs to the main tasks of each state. Therefore, countries, in response to the current political, security and economic situation, must earmark, within the framework of their national budgets, a proportion of the available resources to ensure their defence. The aim of the article, based on current trends in the defence budgets of the European Union member states, is point out that not only the global economic and financial crisis and the credit and debt crisis in the euro area have a significant negative impact on the amount of resources, which individual European Union member states earmark to ensure their defence.