How much national security depends on business and civil society closing ranks with military effort? Lessons from Forum2000 exchange with former Lithuanian president and Ukrainian practitioners.
Learning from Ukraine, building a strong army is not always a magic pill for becoming better prepared for war. Preparedness can be nurtured through functioning institutions, resilient communities and a society that understands its own role in national defence. This was the main conclusion of the discussion in Prague, featuring former Lithuanian President Dalia Grybauskaitė, Ukrainian sociologist Hanna Hrytsenko, Ukrainian energy expert Olexi Pasyuk and Visegrad Insight editor-in-chief Wojciech Przybylski, moderated by Galyna Kotliuk of the Heinrich Böll Foundation.
A country’s ability to withstand aggression depends on the strength of its democratic institutions, civil society, economy, local communities and critical infrastructure. These cannot be separated from military defence, and none of them can be improvised once an attack begins – that was the main takeaway from the exchange.
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