Lithuanian Annual Strategic Review

This article addresses the relations between intelligence services and political institutions in democratic countries and overviews the main causes of both challenges and the tensions between these issues. The purpose of this publication is to analyze the relations between intelligence services and political institutions of contemporary democratic countries, to determine the fundamental challenges and disagreements of these institutions and to offer suggestions on how to avoid, or at least to reduce, these challenges and their affect on the intelligence activities.

China's transformation from the world's economic periphery into its nucleus has been labelled as an example of either the horror of globalization, or of its success. The enormous growth pace of the Chinese economic and political potential had become an important challenge to the status quo of the international system. The author of the article, having employed the basic statements of the political economy and official statistical data as well as institutional assessments, is developing the idea that China's comeback to the world's dynamic economy after a number of decades of autonomy has been determined by the ability of the country's political and business elite to choose priorities so as to liberate the market forces, use the surplus of the world capital and its regular movement to the places where marginal profit is the highest, and, at the same time, expediently manipulate the Sino-centric attitudes of the nation. However, it starts to be obvious that the national bureaucracy that is prone to yielding to the dictatorship of the defensive economic nationalism and is striving at unproportionally high benefits for itself may lose the main stimulant of the economic growth, i.e. foreign investment.

The main goal of this survey is to explain the place of Africa in the global security environment, specificity of African geopolitics, as well as a general understanding of African development in the context of current World Order. In even recent history, Africa was the global periphery - the source of raw materials and a cheap labour force. The global perception of Africa started to change in recent years, however the continent remains insecure and unsafe both for Africans and the World community due to extreme instability on the states and interstate conflicts as well as so called non-military threats including epidemics, low social organization of society, etc. The state stability and consolidation, sustainable development, and implementation of Millennium Development Goals are prerequisites to coming to a solution for the African problems. The world has the possibility to assist Africa in dealing with epidemics, climate change and other issues as well as applying stricter arms control, peace keeping and peace making.

Peace-building as one of the concepts of peace operations in general, recently is becoming more frequently analysed phenomena in political science and objectives and goals of peace-building more often becomes part of agenda and actions of international and nongovernmental organizations. Today peace-building became an integral part of missions conducted by United Nations (UN) and European Union (EU). These tendencies are evident in NATO too and the largest regional organization - Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) - is active in early warning, conflict prevention, crisis management, post-conflict building. The purpose of the article is to analyse concept of peace-building and its measures, mechanisms used in peace operations. The first part of the article analyses how concept peace-building is analysed in UN, EU, OSCE and NATO by having an aim to show the language used by these organizations and what's the content of the terminology. The second part analyses peace-building operations in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH), primary focusing on peace-building mechanisms used by UN, NATO, OSCE and EU. An example of BiH was chosen because of the state's importance both to the European Union and security in Europe as a whole and of special design of political system of the state after Dayton Agreement.

The long-term development of the country's economy and its sectors are determined by different circumstances regarded as long-term factors. The Lithuanian geographical situation is also referred to as one of these circumstances. This is a very specific factor, constant in its content, however, characteristic of various aspects of its importance. Due to this reason, there is a fairly sceptical attitude towards the potential of this factor in developing and implementation of strategies. This paper highlights the conditions under which the geographical situation of the country can become a strategic factor and utilized in development of economy and its different sectors. The first part, which deals with the competitiveness conceptions of the economic entities, suggests that the conditions, under which these entities can function, can be regarded as strategic i.e. long-term development factors, provided these conditions contribute to enhancing their competitiveness and operate within the system of other factors. The second part presents models of competitive advantage and systemic competitiveness of the nations as a potential basis for developing strategies. These models employ the geographical situation alongside with other factors determining economic development. The third part emphasizes that in many theoretical and practical studies, the 'created' factors, rather than the 'inherited' ones, are identified as strategic factors. Despite this, there exist examples in the world-wide practice that it is these 'inherited' factors that play the decisive role in the development of the country. The paper also suggests that it is essential to take into consideration the problem of demand and competition in the sector where geographical situation is to be referred to as one of the strategic factors.

The article analyses the problems of bilateral relations between Great Britain and Russia in 2006-2008 through the conception of foreign policy symbolic games. It shows how Russia managed to create and sustain the asymmetrical relations, which allowed Russia having the initiative to define these relations and formulate the rules of the game. The article reveals how a seemingly simple story can become the long-term event of the bilateral relations, as well as demonstrates how it is possible to 'loose' the symbolic game in foreign relations first of all because of misapprehension what kind of game is played.

Georgia's security alternatives in recent years have narrowed to a very concrete goal - NATO membership. This kind of choice seems to be logical for a small state. Nevertheless, security strategy, based on the key goal of alliance with stronger partner, may cause several problems. In the case of Georgia, security dilemmas are even more complicated. Unresolved problems with separatist regions were permanent key obstacles for Georgia to become reliable NATO candidate. The more Georgia was streaming towards NATO, the more relations with Russia deteriorated. The flashpoint of growing tension was the blitzkrieg of August 2008 between Georgia and Russia. Nevertheless the results of war may seem to provide the possibility for Georgia to resolve internal problems: however they failed to provide any guarantees for NATO membership. In this research paper the question - whether striving for NATO membership could guarantee Georgia's security - is analyzed. Also, the main obstacles for the realization of Georgia's security strategy and key dilemmas for NATO, in dealing with Georgia's case, are discussed.

The author who from November 2006 to May 2007 commanded the Lithuanian-led Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT) in Afghanistan's Ghor Province discusses PRT achievements and challenges. The article provides information on the PRT mission, organization, tasks and the ways to implement them. It is recognized that the PRT is given a mission that requires efforts in the stabilization and reconstruction areas. While outlining the main challenges - the small number of troops, inadequate counternarcotics effort, the gap between stability and reconstruction, low capacity of the Government of Afghanistan - it is suggested that the PRT has achieved significant results in a stabilization area while achievements in the reconstruction domain are not so impressive. In order to be successful, the PRT needs to focus mostly on stabilization tasks involving local authorities and other partners while looking for larger international donors who could focus on reconstruction.

This paper considers the peculiarities of the construction of the image of the army and the soldier in Lithuania's political discourse. It raises the question regarding whether the conception of Lithuania's army as part of NATO military forces and the objective of transforming Lithuania's army into a professional one can be reconciled with Lithuania's domestic policies' general orientation to the nation state. The changes in the image of the army and the soldier are analyzed in the broader historical/cultural context in order to relate them to the interaction of modern/postmodern normative attitudes in Lithuania's political discourse and to the peculiarities of Lithuania's attempts at creating its international identity. An analysis of public opinion polls on issues of the transformation of the military supports the conclusion of our analysis of the main strategic documents, namely, that Lithuania is currently undergoing a transition from the normative attitudes of a modern nation state to those of the postmodern model of society. This circumstance should be heeded in reforming Lithuania's armed forces.

The article describes and explains the evolution of Lithuania intelligence system and the main phases of its development. The article analyzes function and responsibilities of the two most important actors in this field - the State Security Department and the Second Investigation Department under the Ministry of Defence. Special attention is devoted to the implementation of the intelligence cycle and the division of responsibilities between two intelligence institutions. The article concludes that in 20 years Lithuanian managed to create a functioning intelligence system that can support the decision making process and satisfy the needs of intelligence consumers, although serious weaknesses remain.