Journal of Security and Sustainability Issues

In the 21st century technology has reached a sufficiently advanced level. The armed forces of NATO countries are actively implementing simulation systems into the military training process. Simulators save resources and allow troops to train in situations that would be very dangerous or impossible to create in the real world. Properly trained soldiers are a key part of strong and challenging army. Therefore, Lithuanian military training is constantly being improved and new methods are being sought to ensure the highest quality process to develop soldiers’ competence. In order to properly evaluate the effectiveness of the simulators used in the Lithuanian Armed Forces training unit, it is necessary to determine if simulators help to prepare soldiers capable of analysing situations properly and to be modern in combat. Also identify fields for improvement in the use of existing simulators related to military training, provide rational solutions to eliminate identified problems for military training. The aim of this study was to identify Lithuanian Armed Forces combat training centre improvement fields for the simulators’ use in the individual and collective training.

The article is devoted to study of information security as a challenge of modern development of information and computer technologies. It was found that achievement of a satisfactory level of information security, which is a state of safety of balanced important interests of an individual, society and state against internal and external threats in the information sphere, is possible based on economic, organizational, technical, legal, psychological and other methods. Existing threats to the information security in Ukraine have been identified. The concept and essence of hybrid war as one of the threats to protection of information interests of an individual, society and the state are considered separately. A conclusion was made about the expediency of supplementing the Information Security Doctrine of Ukraine with such a threat as a hybrid war, which actually takes place in the east of the country. A system of information security components in Ukraine has been disclosed, among which a particular attention has been paid to the Ministry of Information Policy of Ukraine and the State Agency for Electronic Governance of Ukraine. In order to improve the mechanism of protection of the information space of Ukraine, it is proposed to differentiate at the legislative level the concepts of “information security” and “cybersecurity”, since their understanding is the basis for the formulation and implementation of the state information policy, improve international cooperation between states to exchange experience, as well as to involve general public to protect the information space.

We based our research on existing functional organizational structures and systems of financial administration of Slovakia. We worked on the assumption that improvement of effectiveness of the system of optimal tax collection was necessary for sustainable development of Slovak socio-economic system as such. Based on the current trends analysis we assume that a forthcoming tax and customs administration reform would significantly increase the effectiveness of the system and as a result it would also lead to a more positive view of taxes as socially unpopular obligations. By this process, Slovakia aims at effective tax system, which can lead to increase in efficiency and higher competitiveness of our state among EU countries. Based on the survey in three Slovak regions and by factor analysis we want to analyze the structure of following social factors: collection of contributions and accessibility, competency of tax administration employees, electronization of tax administration, effectiveness of tax collection, labor costs, and administrative burden of tax administration. These are considered to be hidden reasons of mutually correlated variables. The aim is to explain and clarify the observed correlations. It can lead to improvement of the conditions of tax collection for taxpayers when they can use electronic form of their declarations of contributions and taxes (taxes, contributions: social security and health insurance) based on which the state can distribute via a unique identifier the funds to individual institutions.

Pension system efficiency is very sensitive topic to every citizen of the country. It is very common to criticize established pension systems in search for better solutions. The authors in the present research paper attempt to find out whether the criticism is deserved by evaluating the efficiency of Latvian pension system from the future pensioner’s point of view in the context of the state pension financed from two sources: state pension and state funded pension. Additionally, the authors highlight a number of aspects of pension system the sustainability in Latvia. Private pension is not considered.

The duties of the police (to protect from criminal and other illegal threats life, health, rights and freedoms, property, and the interests of society and the State), requires the substantial financial resources to provide police operations. Nowadays, the police can be considered as a service institution, and the issue of the efficiency of the police work has become topical. The author’s research is focused on the multi-national problem of comparing of police efficiency issue. Selected set of countries are the following: Belgium, Czech Republic, Denmark, Germany, Estonia, Greece, Spain, Croatia, Italy, Cyprus, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Hungary, Malta, Netherlands, Austria, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovenia, Slovakia, Finland, Sweden, Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway and Switzerland. The author’s research is based on the USA and the UK researchers’ studies, surveys of citizens, indicators derived from Eurostat data. The main conclusions of research are the following. The dynamics of the number of crimes recorded in the state, number of crimes recorded by the police per 100,000 residents, as well as the clearance rate cannot be the criteria to determine the efficiency of the police operations. In the situation when regulatory enactments of various countries do not state the same results to be achieved, the author proposes to establish satisfaction with the work of the police and the level of latent crime in the country as universal criteria for transnational comparison.