Meditations on Deterrence

A guiding star of Lithuania’s national security strategy is the concept of deterrence, around which all other activities coalesce. Deterrence can be achieved through strengthened defense capabilities, enhanced partnerships with our allies, and a resilient society. Though the military is a significant contributor to the overall deterrence efforts, building of a resilient nation requires the whole-of-society approach.

How does a small country, like Lithuania, function in our volatile world of the new great games? How should we react and anticipate the omnipresence of uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity? A sense of security within a state is of fundamental importance, and the strength of this perception is a precursor to all other social, economic, cultural activities that the people undertake.

A fundamental task of the state is to provide security, so that all other stakeholders can conduct the activities they are supposed to do. Historically, provision of security, through the monopoly of violence, had been the realm of traditional government security structures—the military, the police and other law enforcement institutions.

Yet in today’s world, as the lines between kinetic and non-kinetic activities begin to blur and the battlefield shifts from a physical landscape to the information space, a clear delineation of security-related responsibilities becomes harder to achieve. Now is the time when the government institutions, private sector and non-governmental organizations must work together to anticipate and adapt to the modern day security challenges. The role of a nation state is as relevant as ever.

Deterrence must not fail because our country’s long-term survival is at stake. For Lithuanians, effective deterrence has a simple meaning—if Russia intended to cause us harm, Russian decision-makers should calculate that it did not make sense to go forward with the aggression as the cost would be too high.

To achieve deterrence, Lithuania has a three dimensional strategy, which focuses on a) strengthening the capability of the Lithuanian armed forces, b) enhancing partnerships with our key allies from NATO, not least with the United States, and c) building a resilient society—arguably the most effective long-term medicine against emerging threats.

Since 2014, Lithuania has focused heavily on building capability of the Armed Forces. Lithuanian Ministry of National Defense has launched an ambitious modernization program centering on firepower, maneuverability, and intelligence. Equally important are investments in infrastructure to build readiness of national military forces and to enable host nation support for the allies. Another crucial element is growing people potential by boosting training, modernizing soldier equipment, thus, increasing survivability and lethality of individual soldiers.

Partnerships are becoming deeper and more integrated through in-country and NATO-wide exercises, which demonstrate the alliance’s commitment to its Eastern frontier. In Lithuania, the presence of the German-led NATO eFP battle group is the clearest signal of deterrence at work. The relationship with the United States is vital, given America’s unmatched military capability set indispensable to European security. These partnerships, both bilateral and institutional, are essential ingredients for successful deterrence.

The final pillar of Lithuania’s deterrence-focused strategy is societal resilience. The following guiding principles steer the government’s policy on strengthening a resilient society.

1. Start with clear objectives. It is important to know where you are going. In Lithuania, a discourse about resilient society starts with the following definition—a society that is united in purpose, fair in opportunity, critically thinking, educated, with a high level of trust.
2. Building a resilient society requires a whole-of-government approach. In Lithuania, it is unsurprising that with the defense budget leaping forward, there are voices in the country arguing for a broader military role in civic affairs. However, deterrence is too broad of a concept for the military alone to digest. Modern deterrence unequivocally includes military, defense, economic, social, cultural, information dimensions. In today’s deterrence-centric defense landscape where social media becomes a weapon and cyber attacks on critical infrastructure crop up daily, the response must lie with all of the government.
3. Political will to commit. This sounds like a no-brainer, but leadership does matter. Lithuania’s current government managed to gather all relevant political parties at the table to sign an agreement that commits this and future governments to a gradual increase in defense spending. Lithuania’s defense expenditures will grow from 2% to 2.5% of GDP by 2030. Other clauses of the agreement include the tools to bolster defenses against hybrid, information, cyber threats as well as building capability in mobilization and host nation support. All fall under the umbrella of a resilient society.
4. Highest level coordination. To promote resilience, there has to be a top-level organizational structure that overseas, coordinates and manages both the analytical information flow and communications. In Lithuania, such an institution resides with the Prime Minister’s office. Its success rests on efficient information sharing and timely identification of potential threats in the information space. Though operational in nature, the bureau’s success directly correlates with timely threat perception among population and, therefore, contributes to resilience building.
5. Military structures serve as enablers. The military should not be treated as a do-it-all super-institution. Following the breakout of the war in Ukraine, Lithuania has reinstated conscription in 2015. Mandatory military service increases readiness of the military units and augments the reserves, which stand ready to mobilize. Yet, the truly unifying effect of conscription is an opportunity for young men and women to serve together. Lithuania’s experience shows that conscription graduates are physically stronger and militarily advanced. They are also more socially aware, have a better grasp of what they want to do in future, and a stronger sense of patriotism. In short, they are better citizens and more confident human beings. The military, thus, serves a fundamental role strengthening resilience in the society.

Deterrence will remain essential for the long-term security of Lithuania. The Ministry of National Defense is spearheading the effort, but in a rapidly changing world, multi-stakeholder discussions are essential in deriving innovative solutions to modern day security threats.

We are not alone in this, as all countries are struggling to grasp the changing security paradigm. From the experience of Lithuania, a country at the Eastern frontier of NATO, it is evident that the next step should be the realization that societal resilience is not only a governmental affair, but a whole-of-society mission. 

Education, for example, is essential in empowering the population with self-worth and critical thinking skills. Everybody needs to contribute to build a trust-based resilient society.