A Theoretical and Methodological Substantiation of the Approach to Assessing Ukraine’s National Security in the Post-War Period

Constant changes in the international security environment require quick and adequate responses and the formation of an appropriate system for assessing Ukraine’s national security, taking into account the influence of various exogenous and endogenous threats and military risks. In this regard, the aim of this article is the theoretical and methodological substantiation of the approach to assessing Ukraine’s national security in the post-war period. As a result of the research, it is determined that most researchers and specialists attempt to assess the level of Ukraine’s national security using indices calculated by leading international organizations and rating agencies. These indices are attractive because they are comprehensive and take into account various aspects of national security: political, economic, social, environmental, demographic, informational, etc. However, these indices cannot provide a complete and accurate analysis of the level of national security and assess the efficiency of its provision system from methodological positions. That is, global indices and ratings do not allow for adequate assessments of the dangerous state of a country, nor do they facilitate the development of appropriate mechanisms to ensure national security, taking into account the direct impact on critical system parameters while preventing the emergence of new threats. Therefore, it is considered advisable to apply an integral approach, which should be based on the use of a system of rating assessments and the calculation of an integral indicator using a list of indicators that are conditionally systematized into the following groups: 1) characterizing the level of military security and defense capability of the country; 2) reflecting the state of societal development and the orderliness of social relations (law and order), the stability and effectiveness of State policy in the field of national security; 3) characterizing the level of economic and financial security; 4) reflecting the socio-demographic characteristics of the country; 5) characterizing the level of environmental security. The proposed methodological approach will allow for addressing the issues of national security provision based on unified methodological positions, despite the different substantive content of individual aspects of determining the threshold values of assessment indicators. Moreover, this integral approach, which is based on systems and national security theories, and also calculations using econometric methods, will enable the establishment of general regularities of occurrence of real and potential threats, and the development of forecasting methods to substantiate strategic directions for ensuring national security in the post-war period.