Generolo Jono Žemaičio Lietuvos karo akademija

Language proficiency is a key prerequisite for interoperability within NATO armed forces, making foreign language education an essential component of professional military training. This paper examines learning motivation and learning effectiveness among Czech Armed Forces personnel attending English language courses aligned with NATO STANAG 6001. The research is based on a questionnaire survey of 320 learners conducted between 2023 and 2025, combined with their examination results. The study analyses differences in motivation and learning effectiveness with respect to proficiency level, gender, and age. The findings indicate that learning effectiveness is not directly dependent on course level, motivation structures are similar across genders, and the age significantly influences learning outcomes.

This study investigates the long-term relationship between military expenditures and public indebtedness in Finland and Sweden over the period 2000–2024, in the context of rising defence spending linked to the Russian–Ukrainian conflict and NATO’s 2% GDP target. The main objective is to examine whether a positive relationship exists between military expenditures and national debt. Estimating an autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) framework with macroeconomic control variables, the results reveal a statistically significant positive long-run effect for Sweden, while Finland exhibits a negative relationship. The findings suggest that the fiscal impact of defence spending is country-specific.

Physical fitness is a key element of military readiness. This study compared performance in the 12-minute run and upper-body strength tests between University of Defence students and active-duty soldiers from Land Forces, Air Forces, and the Airborne Regiment (data 2023–2025, age 20–30 years). University of Defence students significantly outperformed Land Forces and Air Forces personnel in the 12-minute run in both sexes. In upper-body strength, students achieved comparable or slightly better results than Land and Air Forces. The Airborne Regiment remained a distinct elite group, recording the highest performance in all disciplines. Performance was highly stable across the three-year period. The results indicate that military university students demonstrate physical fitness levels comparable to or exceeding those of regular active-duty soldiers, while still falling short of the standards of the Airborne Regiment.

This paper analyses the determinants of recruitment intensity in the Armed Forces of the Czech Republic. Using annual data from 2005 to 2024, a multivariate regression framework is applied to examine the effects of labour market, demographic, and fiscal factors. The results indicate that the unemployment rate is negatively associated with recruitment intensity, while demographic variables exhibit strong and consistent effects. By contrast, compensation and fiscal variables show weaker and less robust relationships. These findings suggest that realised recruitment outcomes reflect not only labour supply conditions but also institutional constraints and the structure of the population meeting military recruitment requirements.

This contribution deals with modelling of military expenditure and its potential security and economic determinants by an Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) model. This approach is applied to several NATO member countries over the period 2001–2016, namely to Visegrad group countries and Baltic states. Time series of military expenditure (database SIPRI), the risk of inflation, GDP growth, terrorism, foreign pressure, cross-border conflict and ethnic tension (database of Political Risk Service Group) are used in analysis.