Lithuanian Annual Strategic Review

Straipsnyje nagrinėjamas atkurtos Lietuvos Respublikos krašto apsaugos sistemos ginklų ir karo technikos įsigijimo 1990–2004 m. procesas, išskirti jo etapai, juos apibrėžiantys politiniai ir ekonominiai veiksniai, kilusios problemos, iššūkiai ir ypatumai. Tyrinėjama, kiek ir kokių ginklų būta Lietuvoje atkūrus nepriklausomybę ir kokią galimybę jais disponuoti turėjo atsikurianti Lietuvos Respublikos krašto apsauga, iš kokių šaltinių ir kokiu būdu jų buvo įsigyjama.

In the Middle East, vast oil reserves led to economic modernization and prosperity in the region. However, it is one of the most conflict-prone regions. This paper studies the relationship between military spending, oil and development in Middle Eastern countries using a panel data fixed effect for country-level observations over the period 1986–2016. The relationship between development and conflict will not be uniform throughout the region. Therefore, to test this hypothesis, the study categorized oil exporting countries into three parts that are countries with above average oil export, below average oil export and no oil export. The estimates show a significant reduction in military spending over time and the most declines were observed in the countries where oil export is above average than the Middle East. The results indicate a significant inverse relationship between the military spending with exports and oil rents in overall Middle East analysis and for countries whose average oil export is greater than the Middle East. It is also found that the military burden adversely affects economic growth across all the model specification. However, military spending is declining over time which indicates that there is a reverse causality between development and conflict. It is crucial finding in the context of peace and development literature.

Romania’s membership of NATO and the European Union has many advantages, but also risks for each of them. Romania continues to strengthen its position and role within NATO and the EU. Romania has shown that it is a loyal and credible partner in its relationship with all international organizations. Romania’s strategic documents with NATO and the EU are well structured and clear. These include mission, vision, strategic objectives and ways of cooperating with each other, as well as the financial, material, human and informational resources needed to implement them. The objective of our research was to identify the main threats, risks and vulnerabilities of Romania as a NATO member state. The analysis has led to the discovery of new ways of reducing risks and threats, as well as solving the major vulnerabilities of Romania. The research is based on the National Defense Strategy, the Romanian Armed Forces Endowment Plan for the period 2019-2028 and other strategic documents underpinning the development of the cooperation between Romania and NATO. Within the analysis process the main threats, risks and vulnerabilities of Romania in relation to NATO were identified. Based on the analysis carried out, several ways of action are proposed through which Romania can strengthen its defense and security capabilities. The results of the research are relevant both theoretically and practically because they show the major changes that Romania has made after entering NATO and the exceptional performances achieved both in the development of the defense and security capability and in fulfilling the commitments assumed by Romania with NATO and other organizations it belongs to.

This paper has aimed to explore the inter-linkages of economic growth, poverty and inequality in the context of the European Union (EU) countries during the period of 2005 – 2016. Descriptive statistics analysis and econometric methods have been applied for this purpose. Research results have revealed statistically significant interrelationships between growth and poverty in half of the European Union countries. Moreover, in majority of these countries poverty has been elastic of economic growth. It should be noted, that the countries with higher level of economic development have relatively smaller share of population living below the national poverty lines. However, we cannot say the same about the growth – inequality relationships, which have varied across the EU countries. There are economically strong countries with relatively high income inequality and economically weaker countries with lower income distribution coefficients. However, in many cases poverty and income inequality tend to move in the same direction, i.e. as one increases, the other as well and vice versa. Finally, the insights of the research could be useful in developing a common strategy for smart, sustainable and inclusive growth and achieving the goals for Europe 2020.

This contribution deals with modelling of military expenditure and its potential security and economic determinants by an Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) model. This approach is applied to several NATO member countries over the period 2001–2016, namely to Visegrad group countries and Baltic states. Time series of military expenditure (database SIPRI), the risk of inflation, GDP growth, terrorism, foreign pressure, cross-border conflict and ethnic tension (database of Political Risk Service Group) are used in analysis.