Lithuanian Annual Strategic Review

The aim of this article is to evaluate the tenure of Lithuania’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, Gabrielius Landsbergis, through the lens of successes and failures on the international stage with selected countries. From a research perspective, Landsbergis’s term at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs will be analyzed in the context of continuity and change within Lithuanian foreign policy, framed by the neo-idealism approach. This analysis revealed that despite the lack of strategic guidelines for Lithuania’s foreign policy, it was perceived by external stakeholders as relatively predictable and values-driven, particularly with regard to specific actions taken by the Lithuanian government towards China, Russia, Belarus, Ukraine, and Taiwan.

The purpose of this article is to analyse how the most read Romanian media outlets (Libertatea, Digi24, Ştirile Pro TV, Adevărul, Click!) were reporting news about Lithuania in the period between 24 February 2022 and 15 April 2024, with two aims being elaborated in the research. The first goal is to focus on the reflection of Lithuanian and Romanian bilateral relations; the second goal is to assess the Romanian media coverage on the news related to Lithuanian national security. The research suggests that the Romanian media is extensively reporting news from Lithuania. These news items can be grouped into three categories: the first category is the security news; the second category is the other news containing anything directly related to Lithuania excluding security questions; the third category is the contextual news, with only contextual references to Lithuania among other things. Meanwhile, the security category can be grouped into three subcategories, those being: the news from Lithuania; the news covering Lithuanian and Romanian bilateral relations; the contextual news. The analysis confirms the intensively developing bilateral relations as well as wide coverage of Lithuanian security questions in Romanian media. The study aims to expand the perceptions of the geographical dimension of the Lithuanian network of bilateral relations, and representation of Vilnius’ security perceptions in NATO allies.

The aim of the text is to verify such changing geopolitics through an increasing (possible) cooperation concerning the United States of America, Taiwan and Lithuania in the fields of politics and security, as well as to point out what China has lost by Lithuania’s withdrawal from cooperation in the format ‘16+1’. The research problem is a diplomatic discussion between Lithuania and China, which has achieved increasing interest from foreign countries. The theoretical basis of the research is post-structural theory and Gustavsson’s model. From this conception, Lithuania accepts and raises its identity as it is, primarily according to a huge and unsafe power.

The aim of the scientific article is to reveal motives and features of using private military companies in Russian Federation foreign and security policy in 2014-2019. In order to do so, qualitative research method is applied, using case analysis method. From the analysis of the motives for the use of private military companies and conventional forces, it can be said that they are similar, as the use of both military structures allows to achieve more or less the same interests. However, it was observed that in terms of the specifics of the forces and the diversity scheme of social deviations, private military and security companies are more similar to regular forces. Nevertheless, both types of private companies help Russia avoid direct liability for various violations of the law. Considering the case of Russia analyzed in the study, the factors explained in the microtheory are adjusted, supplemented and interrelated. The analysis found that not all regions that are far from Russia are financially beneficial, but strategically, all give Russia an advantage over the United States.

News took wing recently, ISIS is responsible for the migration pressure afflicting the Western World, furthermore ISIS wants to send terrorists among the mass of immigrants into Europe and America, where they – as a “third column” – are going to carry out terrorist attacks, similar to 9/11, at the proper time. This news generated serious debates and emotions in the Western World. Some people say, the threat sould be taken seriously, others claims the ISIS is not able to carry out such well co-ordinated action, and the Western countries has to let in all of the immigrants indiscriminately, apart from the fact, if we are able to integrate them or not.