Friday, March 24, 9 a.m. The international conference “Vilnius Security Forum 2023. United Defense” will be held in the Seimas (Seima III Chamber, 2nd floor).
The conference is organized by the National Security and Defense Committee of the Seimas (NSGK) together with the Defense Support Fund.
“Vilnius Security Forum” is being held in Lithuania for the eighth time. This year, it will focus on collective defence, discussing challenges and ways to strengthen it.
After 2022 February 24 Europe has clearly realized that the current deterrence strategy of “Presence Deterrence” has not worked – NATO’s small European military forces do not provide an adequate deterrent to the massive Russian forces concentrated in the eastern part of Europe, including the Kingdom of Belarus and Belarus.
Some NATO countries (such as the UK) have already advised to switch to a new concept of “deterrence defense”. This would mean higher readiness, higher defense spending, more troops, more reserves, new concepts, better forces and, above all, a new level of regional and NATO-wide cooperation.
“The situation in Ukraine poses a threat not only to the security of Lithuania, but also to the entire Western order and its authority. The ongoing wide-ranging war in Ukraine is forcing our Western security community to rethink the strategies used until then and the means to implement them.
In order to deter the enemy, we must switch to the principle of forward defense, strengthen air defense in the Baltic and the entire eastern flank of NATO, and update regional defense plans.
I hope that we will see these changes when the NATO summit takes place in Vilnius already this summer,” said Laurynas Kasčiūnas, chairman of the NSGK of the Seimas.
For this reason, the conference will examine the future deterrence strategy in the Baltic region, we will emphasize the sensitivity of the region’s security and the importance of NATO and the EU in the face of new challenges.
Speaker of the Seimas Viktorija Čmilytė-Nielsen will welcome the participants of the conference, Lithuanian Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs Jonas Survila will give a speech at the event, and security experts will also participate and share their experiences: the former commander of the American military in Europe att. Gen. Lt. Ben Hodges, former adviser to the President of Ukraine Oleksiy Arestovich, NATO Deputy Secretary General for Operations Burku San and others.
Conference agenda [pdf]
Registration link: https://bit.ly/VSF23-registration
