Editorial: Security Perspectives

Abstract

This is the title of the third issue in the twenty-fourth volume of the Contemporary Military Challenges. We started from the changes that have taken place over the last few years. We have had in mind the increased migration flows towards the European Union, the experience of the Covid 19 epidemic, the climate change that surprises us time and time again, despite the fact that we are aware of it, and that we are trying to adapt and respond to it accordingly. In March this year, the "Strategic Compass for Security and Defence - For a European Union that protects its citizens, values and interests and contributes to international peace and security" was launched, and at the end of June, the new NATO Strategic Concept. Both with the aim of rethinking, aligning and unifying the way we look at existing security challenges and developing new security perspectives. At the beginning of this year, we were taken by surprise by the Russian Federation's armed attack against Ukraine. Some had predicted it; others only foresaw it. Many were convinced, however, that such a phenomenon was not possible in a modern democratic society. Huntington's theory of a clash of civilisations, which seemed to have outlived its usefulness in modern European society, has become relevant again. A realistic view of the contemporary security, social and political situation in the world and, above all, the crisis of values and the consequent need for unification have encouraged the European Union to aspire to become a global security actor in the international environment. The war in Ukraine is forcing the European Union to act. It has prepared a package of economic measures or sanctions to influence the Russian Federation in terms of expressing its disapproval of its unilateral moves. However, the Member States are not entirely united on how to confront and counter the situation. Without unity, united political positions and united action, the European Union cannot become the global security actor that it has claimed to be in its strategic compass. In this context, it is also worth mentioning its Common Security and Defence Policy, which is first and foremost a policy, and the fact that the European Union does not have its own military capabilities to manage. The Member States have military capabilities, and they spend varying amounts on their defence. Over the last decade, most Member States have been reducing their defence expenditure, despite the fact that it was agreed at the NATO summit in Wales in 2012 that it would amount up to 2% of GDP. Not all Member States of the European Union are members of the Alliance, but there are twenty-one of them that are members of both. Douglas Barrie and his colleagues produced a special report in 2020 on 'European defence policy in an era of renewed great-power competition', which concluded that, assuming that all Member States did indeed spend 2% of GDP on defence, the European Union and its Member States would need ten to fifteen years to be adequately prepared in terms of security capabilities for a possible aggression by a country with the military capabilities of the Russian Federation today. With investments in this area as they are in 2022, it would take twenty years. This leads to the logical conclusion. There are only two ways of stopping the Russian Federation in its territorial and, of course, political ambitions. The first and most appropriate is political, the second military. Since the European Union does not represent a serious opponent in defence and military terms to this large and militarily powerful country, the only way for it to achieve its status as a global security actor is politically. The military conflict in Ukraine is a major test for both the Union and the Alliance. The European Union now has the opportunity to test how strong and credible its ideals, values and beliefs are. Are its senior representatives wise and innovative enough to look beyond economic sanctions to other diplomatic avenues to achieve what they have written in their strategic compass – to be a global player? Time will answer this question. Until then, however, scholars and other experts will be studying the various influences and phenomena in the security domain. Some of them will also share them with the readers of Contemporary Military Challenges. In a time of economic sanctions imposed by the European Union, Tamas Somogyi and Rudolf Nagy focus on the protection of critical infrastructure, of which the financial sector is an important part. In their article Cyber threats and security challenges in the Hungarian financial sector, they explore the security risks facing the banking system in their country. The paper Geostrategic perspectives of Slovenia in a changing world draws on two geopolitical theories by Mackinder and Spykman, who develop their views on the European space. Uroš Tovornik explored Slovenia's geostrategic position on the basis of their theories, focusing on its geopolitical characteristics. He summarised his findings into four possible scenarios, which are determined by these characteristics and from which possible future geopolitical orientations are derived. Olusola Kolawole Oluwagbire explored the influence of the world’s major powers and how this is reflected in the case of each country. Africa, as a very large continent, is made up of many and diverse countries. The influence of the major powers has always been very strong and integral to African life and the security of its people. In his article An assessment of the impact of relations with major powers on national security: Nigeria in perspective, the author presents how this has changed in recent years and how it affects the security of each country in. Mariann Minkó-Miskovics and Csaba Szabó note that there is an inconsistency between European and Hungarian legislation in the field of dual-use regulation, i.e. for civil and defence purposes. Moreover, they are convinced that this inconsistency may pose a security risk. What this means in practice is presented in the article Interpretation of civil vs. military equipment in European case law - EU and Hungary. Jarosław Włodarczyk writes on the importance of a proper understanding of language between different stakeholders in the international military environment. His study focuses on the teaching of English among military personnel in Poland and on those types of words that do not have a direct translation from Polish into English or vice versa. A particular challenge here is how to adequately explain and teach this to military personnel in the educational process. He summarised his findings in his paper The problem of lexical gaps in teaching military English.