Defence policy and related activities, such as territorial defence and comprehensive defence, are considered a matter of national priority and consensus in Estonia since its restoration of independence in 1991. The actual meaning and its content have depended on numerous linguistic and cultural factors. Educational traditions and alliance relations have played an important role as well. In some cases, changes in actual defence policy content first required an ability to change military terminology and outlook. The current study analyses the meaning of territorial defence, comprehensive defence and total defence in official documents and based on focus group interviews among officers of BDCOL and EMA.
Since regaining independence in 1990 and creating its regular armed forces, Lithuania has had to
do a balancing act. It has had to balance between different approaches of state defence, military structure, collective and national defence. Due to events in Ukraine Lithuania had to reconfigure this balance. The Russian threat forced to emphasize strategy of territorial defence, which altogether required tying up forces and enlarging its numbers by bringing back conscription, substantially increased defence budget, followed by higher tempo and scale in procurement and training. However, Lithuania has managed to maintain its activity and participation in international military operations and political initiatives. Its recent contributions have led to an assumption that its participation in various military missions in the future will not diminish, quite the opposite. Increasing the framework of cooperation in terms of defence and security initiatives will involve Lithuania more deeply and will require further contributions.