Journal of Security and Sustainability Issues

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 article shows that global climate changes are already visible in Ukraine. At the same time the climatic consequences that Ukraine will face will not be so critical for population incubation, as, for example, in Africa and East Asia. In these regions, the catastrophic decline in drinking water and fertile land will stimulate migration to new territories for survival. Climate refugees, according to the authors, will become one of the main challenges to the national and food security of Ukraine and the European region.

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 methodical approach to the integrated evaluation of the energy independence of the country and its regions has been improved based on the multidimensional mean, which includes the selection of statistical indicators, the choice of the base of their normalization, the use of the analytic hierarchy process for evaluation of weighting coefficients and the method of aggregation of indicators in the integrated evaluation of energy independence. Using the coverage ratio of consumption with the production of fuel and energy resources, the state of energy dependence has been analyzed for some world countries, which have successes in conducting the energy policy and experience of which should be implemented in the national strategy for the development of the energy complex. The calculation of integral indicators of energy independence for each region will make it possible to determine the “strong” and “weak” regions in the energy sector, identify the reasons of lagging of the most “energy-dependent” areas, and develop appropriate recommendations for improving energy independence for each region.

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.