Generolo Jono Žemaičio Lietuvos karo akademija

Sustaining professional military service is a critical challenge for small NATO member states facing prolonged security pressures and demographic constraints. This study examines the determinants of long‑term professional military service sustainability in the Lithuanian Armed Forces, situating personnel retention within a broader defense sustainability and resilience framework. Using a quantitative research design, data were collected through a structured questionnaire administered to 207 professional military service soldiers serving in the Infantry Battalion. Hierarchical regression analysis was employed to assess the incremental contribution of structural, organizational, attitudinal, and personal factors to soldiers’ intention to remain in long‑term service. The results indicate that working environment quality provides an essential structural foundation for retention, while professional satisfaction significantly enhances commitment to continued service. Most notably, personal values and family influence emerged as the strongest predictor of long‑term retention intentions, substantially increasing the explanatory power of the model. Organizational and career‑related factors showed indirect effects when more proximal determinants were considered. The findings suggest that sustainable professional military service depends not only on favourable service conditions and organizational practices but, above all, on value alignment and family support. These results underscore the importance of integrating social sustainability considerations into defence human resource policies to strengthen long‑term force resilience.

This article analyzes the career planning model for officers in the Lithuanian Armed Forces as one of the key instruments to develop human capabilities and ensure military readiness. The purpose of the study is to assess how the interaction between vertical and horizontal career paths is defined in officer career planning documents and what impact this interaction has on the development of officers’ competencies, leadership continuity, and institutional resilience of the defence system.

Staff shortages are a global problem in the aviation sector. Women constitute an underutilized talent pool for air transport. The aim of the study was to assess the gap between expectations and reality of the educational offerings of the Aviation program at the War Studies University in the context of preparing students for entering the aviation labour market from the perspective of the respondents' gender. The SERVQUAL method was used. Female students perceived a greater discrepancy between their expectations of their studies and their practical experience, although these differences were generally small. A significantly greater disparity was noted in the evaluation of the Aviation program and its content directly applicable to the aviation labour market. This research was conducted as a pilot study.

The changing security environment in Eastern Europe has increased the strategic importance of road infrastructure for national resilience, civilian protection, and allied military mobility. Lithuania occupies a critical position on NATO's north eastern flank, where a limited number of strategic road corridors simultaneously support domestic mobility, freight transport, civilian evacuation, and allied reinforcement. This study assesses the resilience of Lithuania's national road network under four military threat scenarios: blockade of the Suwałki Corridor and attacks from Kaliningrad Oblast, Belarusian territory, and the Latvian direction. The methodological framework combines structured evidence synthesis from public transport and infrastructure data, strategic and policy documents, and scientific literature with spatial road network assessment, scenario analysis, and multicriteria vulnerability scoring. The Scenario Severity Index identified the Belarusian scenario as the most severe, scoring 24 of 25 points and reaching 96 percent. The Suwałki Corridor and Kaliningrad scenarios each reached 80 percent, while the Latvian direction scenario reached 64 percent. The analysis identified A1, A5, the Vilnius to Kaunas axis, the Kaunas transport node, and strategic connections with Poland and Latvia as the most critical network elements. The findings show that simultaneous civilian evacuation and military movements may constrain road functionality even without direct infrastructure loss. Nationally coordinated corridor based resilience management and unified civil military traffic coordination are therefore required. The results also provide a structured vulnerability evidence base for the future development of the National Transport Mobilization Index.

Growing maritime activity, climate driven changes, and geopolitical competition are increasing the strategic importance of the Arctic and raising new security concerns for NATO. This study examines how defence and security professionals in Lithuania perceive Arctic geopolitical risks, NATO maritime preparedness, regional threats, and future security scenarios. A quantitative survey was conducted using a five point Likert scale. Data were analysed using descriptive statistics, Spearman rank correlation, the Kruskal Wallis test, and K-Means cluster analysis. Three distinct respondent opinion clusters were identified: Manageable Situation, Lowest Perceived Threat, and Growing Threat. The results showed that stronger perceptions of geopolitical competition were associated with higher perceived escalation risk. Perceived Russian threat was positively associated with support for increased NATO investment in long term Arctic capabilities. In contrast, assessments of NATO preparedness and respondents' professional experience were not significantly associated with perceived escalation risk. The findings indicate that support for stronger NATO engagement in the Arctic is mainly shaped by perceptions of specific security threats rather than general assessments of NATO capabilities. The study supports continued attention to long term maritime capability development, regional cooperation, and changing Arctic security conditions.

The construction of water crossings constitutes one of the fundamental tasks of military engineering units. Under combat conditions, such operations are frequently required to be executed within timelines measured in hours. This tempo is enabled by ribbon pontoon bridge systems. Four main structural design concepts can be distinguished among these systems. This paper presents the results of an Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) analysis applied to the problem of selecting among this four design concepts, taking into account two distinct profiles of water obstacles.

This study addresses the issue of last-mile logistics tasks, particularly in areas inaccessible to conventional military vehicles. As a solution, the use of a homogeneous system composed of Unmanned Ground Vehicles is proposed. Ten UGVs (seven wheeled and three tracked) were selected and subsequently evaluated based on their primary parameters in order to identify the most suitable solution for implementation within such a system. The assessment was conducted using two methods: direct comparison of the UGVs with respect to the values of individual parameters, combined with the assignment of ranking scores, and the application of the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP).

This study focuses on the evaluation of the moderating role of psychological resilience in intrinsic motivation. These causal relationships were evaluated in terms of self-efficacy and perceived military competence, taking into account the effects of intrinsic motivation and psychological resilience. Five hypotheses were developed on the effects of the theoretically supported variable relations. The study data set was collected from the Active Lithuanian Army Reserve. In this study, 354 soldiers were investigated using the Brief Resilience Scale (BRE), the Self-Efficacy Scale (EFF), the Intrinsic Motivation Scale (INM) and the Perceived Military Competence Scale (PMC). The results of the analysis conducted showed that between self-efficacy and the growth of perceived military competence is a positive relationship both for soldiers with high and low points of intrinsic motivation. In addition, it can be concluded that reservists with higher internal motivation have more confidence in their abilities to act and achieve the set goals, which can have a significant impact on reservists' readiness to improve their military competence. Similarly, self-efficacy appears to be vital in improving military competences among soldiers with less intrinsic motivation. Moreover, soldiers with higher intrinsic motivation and higher psychological resilience probably increase their military competence due to the pleasure they derive from participating in military exercises.

The installation plan, operation and functions of the military field camp are very important for a military unit action. Every army in a NATO country strives to set up a military camp that is as flexible and comfortable as possible. NATO has set standards for the installation of a military field camp, and each country in the organization relies on this standard. This study was focused on how to build a military field camp as quickly as possible and to minimize the loss of various resources.