Generolo Jono Žemaičio Lietuvos karo akademija

This paper analyses projections of defence expenditure in the Bucharest Nine (B9) countries in the context of NATO’s new commitment from the 2025 Hague Summit. Based on historical data and national declarations, we model two scenarios for development through 2035: the baseline trend and national ambition. The results show significant polarization within B9 countries. While the countries of the northeastern flank (Poland, the Baltic states) are accelerating toward 5.5% of GDP, the countries of Central Europe and the Balkans are converging more toward the baseline level of 3.5%. The study identifies the fiscal limits of this transformation and structural differences in the implementation of the new alliance goals.).

This paper analyses the determinants of recruitment intensity in the Armed Forces of the Czech Republic. Using annual data from 2005 to 2024, a multivariate regression framework is applied to examine the effects of labour market, demographic, and fiscal factors. The results indicate that the unemployment rate is negatively associated with recruitment intensity, while demographic variables exhibit strong and consistent effects. By contrast, compensation and fiscal variables show weaker and less robust relationships. These findings suggest that realised recruitment outcomes reflect not only labour supply conditions but also institutional constraints and the structure of the population meeting military recruitment requirements.

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 paper has investigated the patterns of defence expenditure in the Baltic countries, such as Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia during the period of 2004-2018. Distribution of defence expenditure by main category has been analysed and the main tendencies have been provided. The author has done this by applying total expenditure and decomposition approaches. Firstly, the author has calculated the intensity rate of defence expenditure‘s structural changes in order to assess which country’s defence spending structure has been more dynamic over the period analysed. Secondly, Finger-Kreinin indicator has been used to compare defence expenditure distributions and determine their dissimilarities among the countries under consideration. The author believes that the research highlights key structural trends of defence expenditure and could be helpful for policy makers.

Ensuring the defence of freedom, independence, sovereignty, territorial integrity, and population belongs to the main tasks of each state. Therefore, countries, in response to the current political, security and economic situation, must earmark, within the framework of their national budgets, a proportion of the available resources to ensure their defence. The aim of the article, based on current trends in the defence budgets of the European Union member states, is point out that not only the global economic and financial crisis and the credit and debt crisis in the euro area have a significant negative impact on the amount of resources, which individual European Union member states earmark to ensure their defence.