CYIL vol. 10 (2019)

BIRUTĖ PRANEVIČIENĖ – VIOLETA VASILIAUSKIENĖ CYIL 10 ȍ2019Ȏ military threats (acting against state interests, threatening states, its allies, and strategically located territories etc.) 5 States collect economic, political and other intelligence information about each other in order to gain a certain advantage, including military advantage 6 and at the same time to reduce military threats. Political threats are threats against the political stability of the state institutions. They can appear as threats and pressure to the state government to enact specific policy, attempts to overthrow the government, attempts to disrupt the political system of a state to make it more vulnerable to military attacks. 7 The threats may be direct disruptive acts or other factors influencing the stability of the political system of the state 8 . From the point of view of domestic politics, the political system is threatened by lack of maturity, the inability to formulate policy goals that are in line with national interests, and the resulting errors. Also, the deterioration of the international political atmosphere may threaten external political security and the direct or indirect interference of foreign states in the domestic affairs, attempts to influence certain national authorities. Environmental security deals with environmental issues which threaten the national security of a nation in any manner. Transnational environmental problems that threaten a nation’s security, in its broad defined sense. These include global environmental problems such as climate change due to global warming, deforestation and loss of biodiversity, etc. 9 The environmental threats may cause damage to physical base of the state on such scale as to cause serious threat to state institutions. 10 Environmental threats due to the rapid processes of globalization are becoming more and more important not only for individual states, but also for the whole international security. This area of threats is related to the influence of people on the whole biosphere. Social threats are different from military and political threats because they mostly appear inside the state. The limit is not clear when the social threats become threats to national security. 11 Economic safety of the state can be defined as the ability of the state and its subjects to keep the balance of the objects and systems of economy which is sufficient for the development of the state and its subjects. 12 According to B. Buzan, the dependence on the external suppliers for the provision of some strategic raw material may raise dangers to the economic security of the state and therefore for the national security of the state as a whole 13 . Especially in the energy sector, it should be noted that excessive dependence of one state from the strategic materials and provision of energy from another single state and the concentration of foreign capital, coming from the economy which does not ensure free market or where the free market is unstable, in one or several sectors strategically important for national security poses danger not only to the economic welfare but also for the state 5 MATULIONYTĖ, op. cit. 5, p. 95. 6 Ibid. The North Atlantic Treaty. Washington D.C. – 4 April 1949. https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natolive/ official_texts_17120.htm [accessed 31 May 2019]. 7 BUZAN, op. cit. 6, p. 164. 8 PETRAUSKAITĖ, Audronė, KAZLAUSKAITĖMARKELIENĖ Rolanda, GEDMINIENĖ Rasa, Šalies saugumas ir gynyba (State security and defence)(Generolo Jono Žemaičio Lietuvos karo akademija, Vilnius 2016), p. 18. 9 BUZAN, op. cit. 6, p. 52-53. 10 Ibid, p. 178. 11 MATULIONYTĖ, op. cit. 5, p. 95. 12 Ibid., p. 96. 13 BUZAN, op. cit. 6, p. 169.

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