CHALLENGES TO LITHUANIAN NATIONAL SECURITY

Santrauka

This article presents actual problems, related to national security, which occur in Lithuania in the process of globalization. Despite ongoing changes in people‘s lives, the most important needs of each individual are needs for security and welfare. Each state may have different national security threats; therefore, it is difficult to guarantee personal security without ensuring national security, without securing the state from external threats.

The aim of this article is to reveal the problems of ensuring Lithuanian national security. The article consists of three parts: first part is devoted to present national security concept. National security concept is associated with traditional concept of security, where the main subject of security is considered the state, and a major threat to national security is considered a military attack.

Second part of the article presents institutional national security system in Lithuania, which was established after the restoration of Independence of the State. At the moment the leading institutions which guide the ensuring of national security in Lithuanian Republic are the President of the Republic of Lithuania, the Government and the Seimas. Executive and other institutions are the State Defence Council, the Ministry of National Defence, and the Commander of the armed forces and the Defence Staff, the armed forces, the police, the State Security Department, the Civil Resistance Training Centre, the Department of Civil Defence, the Weaponry Directorate. Lithuania was integrated into the International defence, economic, environmental and similar international organizations that aim to ensure security on national and global basis.

Main threats to Lithuanian national security are identified in the third part of the article. There are different kinds of threats to Lithuanian national security, such as military, political, economic, social and environmental. The most dangerous threats are related to: criminal activities, such as terrorism, organized crime, human trafficking, smuggling, illegal arms trafficking, drug trafficking, illegal migration, which transcends national borders; economical crisis, which influences increasing emigration and social instability in Lithuania; dependency on supply of raw strategic materials and energy from other states.