Lithuanian Annual Strategic Review 2006
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
ISSN 1648–8024 General Jonas Žemaitis Lithuanian Military Academy Institute of International Relations and Political Science of the University of Vilnius StRAteGIc ReSeARch centeR LIthUAnIAn AnnUAL StRAteGIc ReVIeW 2006 Vilnius 2007 Editorial Board Raimundas Lopata Jūratė Novagrockienė Gediminas Vitkus Managing Editor: Gediminas Vitkus Make-up Editor: Amy Elizabeth Jurkauskas Lithuanian Annual Strategic Review 2006, Vilnius: Lithuanian Military Academy, 2007. The main objective of this publication is to provide the readers with a wide-scale analysis and generalization of the changes, both essential and significant, for the national security of Lithuania at the international–systemic, regional, and national levels. The book also aims to give maximum emphasis to the specificity of Lithuanian national security issues and comprehensively present them to a widely interested and concerned audience. © Authors of the articles, 2007 © Lithuanian Military Academy, 2007 content Preface ........................................................................................................5 Global International System and Lithuania.................................... 8 Transatlantic Relations and Challenges to US – EU Cooperation Robertas Bružilas, Donatas Vainalavičius .................................................. 11 “Global War on Terrorism”: Rediscovering the Insurgency and Counterinsurgency Theory Tomas Jermalavičius ...................................................................................27 changing european Security Space............................................... 45 Financial Perspective 2007-2013: The Last Version of the Old Model Jonas Čičinskas ............................................................................................47 Russian-Lithuanian Relations: Between Negative Perception Stereotypes and Pragmatic Cooperation Leonid Karabeshkin .....................................................................................65 Lithuania’s eastern neighbours........................................................ 85 Electoral Democracy in Russia: Trends and Prospects Virgilijus Pugačiauskas ..............................................................................87 Russia’s Economic System: Corporate State’s Modified Model Dalia Šiukštienė ......................................................................................................103 Geopolitics and Information Warfare: Russia’s Approach Nerijus Maliukevičius .................................................................................121 Belarus – the Unfulfilled Phenomena: The Prospects of Social Mobilization Jovita Pranevičiūtė .....................................................................................147 national Security Issues in Lithuania............................................... 175 Lithuania’s Evolving Security and Defence Policy: Problems and Prospects Gražina Miniotaitė .....................................................................................177 Lithuanian Strategic Culture Vaidotas Urbelis ..........................................................................................193 The Security Studies: The Status Quo and the Trends Kęstutis Paulauskas .....................................................................................209 Political Risk in Lithuania and Central Europe – Moderate Risk Analysis Model Giedrius Surplys..........................................................................................233 Information Security in Lithuania: The Problem of May 9th and the Crash of the Russian Fighter Diana Jurgelevičiūtė ....................................................................................259 Preface The Strategic Research Centre, established in 2001 under the agreement of the Lithuanian Military Academy and the Institute of International Rela- tions and Political Science of Vilnius University, has compiled and is present- ing the fifth edition of the “Lithuanian Annual Strategic Review” devoted to Lithuanian, European and global security policy actualities and problems of 2006. Following the established tradition, the compilers of the publication have divided the presented scientific studies into four parts. The first part, called “Global International System and Lithuania”, com- prises two studies related to still urgent contemporary problems – the state of trans-Atlantic relations and the international war on terrorism. Robertas Bružilas and Donatas Vainilavičius have prepared a study exploring modern trans-Atlantic community, which analyzes obstacles precluding the USA and the EU cooperation. The authors make the conclusion that objective impedi- ments to fruitful cooperation between the USA and the EU are non-existent, yet a lack of political will and excessive ambitions of political leaders “derail” the process. Meanwhile, Tomas Jermalavičius has analyzed the phenomenon of the ongoing war against terrorism at the international level and proposes to apply to its analysis the theory of insurgency and counter-insurgency that has already been previously developed, yet in a slightly different context. Having read this article, we will see what advantages the application of the old theory developed for the analysis of internal state conflicts, provides in the new international context. The second part of the review “Changing European Security Space” also covers two texts. The first, dealing with peripeties of the negotiations for stra- tegically important to Lithuania financial EU perspective for 2007 – 2013, was prepared by Jonas Čičinskas. It is obvious that 2006 for Lithuania within the European Union was not particularly successful because of the decision of the European Commission not to grant Lithuania permission to join the Eurozone since the inflation level was 0.07 percentage point higher than the Maastricht criterion. Though the author of the article does not directly analyze this problem, he aptly associates this failure of Lithuania with the same attributes of the EU that were manifested in the negotiations of the EU states for a new financial perspective. Čičinskas points out that negotiations of the European states for the new financial perspective indicated that the EU old-timers are so far neither theoretically nor politically ready to put up with or take into consideration the fact that the Union was joined by a group of countries of qualitatively lower economic development level. The second article presented in this part of the “Review” is a glance from St. Petersburg at the relations of Lithuania and Russia. Leonid Karabeshkin analyzes changes in the quality of Lithuanian and Russian relations after Lithuania became a member of NATO and the EU. The author objectively admits that, in spite of existing close economic and cultural ties between Lithuania and Russia, a large area for political disagreements still remains and mutual trust is in short supply. Yet the author is optimistic in his standpoint and believes in good future of Europe as well as good relations between Lithuania and Russia. In the third part of the “Review”, the difficult to predict post-Soviet space is placed “under the magnifying glass of the researchers”. As many as four arti- cles refer to this. In the context of the coming Duma and presidential elections, Virgilijus Pugačiauskas analyzes the phenomena of the Russian political system named “the power party” and “the administrative resource”. Dalia Šiukštienė, on the basis of Russia’s example, explores a broader problem of the interference of political power in the economy and predicts that the current intervention of the Russian power in economy plunges the country into the quagmire of monopolization and uncompetitiveness. The study by Nerijus Maliukevičius examines an essentially new phenomenon – informational geopolitics – and enquires into how it is perceived and applied in Russia as well as how under these new conditions the information security policy should be shaped. Finally, the article by Jovita Pranevičiūtė is one more attempt to solve the puzzle of the authoritarianism in Belarus, a neighbour of Lithuania. The author is engrossed in the rhetoric of the Belarussian authorities and the opposition, defines the former as more adequate for the expectations of society and thus provides an original explanation of the current situation. The fourth part of the “Review” deals with urgent aspects, problems and cases of Lithuanian national security. This part starts with a synthesized study by Gražina Miniotaitė and is devoted to the generalized estimation of the entire development of the Lithuanian security and defence policy from 1990 to date as well as to its essential changes that have followed the accession of the country to the EU and NATO. The publication further presents the analysis of the Lithuanian strategic culture by Vaidotas Urbelis who aims at revealing and evaluating its peculiarities as well as presenting recommendations for its improvement. The article by Kęstutis Paulauskas can be considered an urge to more deeply modernize and diversify security studies that are under development in Lithuania and also to overcome the so far dominant traditional geopolitical approach (which, by the way, was widely discussed in the previous editions of the “Review”). He not only profoundly explores the existing diversity of approaches to security studies but also makes a point of proving that modern critical attitudes to security studies open new research possibilities and thus are capable of forming a weighty alternative