Analysis of Patterns of the Covid-19 Pandemic Impact on Components of National Security of the State

Abstract

As a result of the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic, the activities of many production enterprises were suspended, many specialists lost their jobs, budgets at all levels received an additional burden due to the need for increased financial support for the normal functioning of health care institutions and medical personnel. All these destructive effects, individually and in combination, led to the deterioration of the level of national security of the countries of the world. Since in the scientific literature, national security is usually considered through the prism of social, economic and environmental security (which was confirmed with the help of bibliometric analysis using the Publish or Perish software product), these components of national security were chosen as the object of this study. The main task of the study is to empirically assess the extent of the destructive impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the components of the national security of the state and to determine the pre-pandemic and pandemic patterns of their formation. In order to test the main hypothesis of the study about the large-scale destructive impact of the pandemic on the components of the national security of the state, the growth rates of each of the indicators of the quantitative assessment of the corresponding block of the component of the national security of the state in the pre-pandemic period (2019/2000) and the pandemic period (2021/2019) were calculated. This study was conducted for a sample of 7 European countries (Czech Republic, Hungary, Lithuania, Latvia, Poland, Romania, Ukraine). The assessment of the growth rate of the collected statistical indicators showed that among the determinants of social security during the outbreak of the pandemic, there was a decrease in the birth rate and life expectancy, an increase in the unemployment rate and mortality. Among the determinants of environmental security during the pandemic period, a decrease in CO2 emissions was recorded among all analyzed countries, except for Ukraine. The growth rates of alternative and nuclear energy and electricity generated from combustible renewable sources became incomparable due to their low relevance and prevalence at the beginning of the 20th century. Among the indicators of economic security, in most of the analyzed countries because of COVID-19 foreign direct investment and the level of public spending on education and military spending have significantly decreased, while the amount of current spending on health care has increased. The obtained empirical results based on the conducted statistical analysis mostly confirmed the hypothesis regarding the negative impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the components of national security. The practical value of the obtained results lies in providing an informational basis for the development of short-, medium- and long-term policies that will pave the way for a strong and sustainable recovery of national security.