What Lithuania Can Teach America About Resilience

The American homeland is now a contested battlespace. China and other US adversaries are increasingly targeting US vulnerabilities, directly and indirectly, across the spectrum of conflict, including in the physical, cyber, and informational domains. These threats should be met by a whole-of-society defense based around resilience.

This concept of total defense, well-known in the European context, is relatively unknown in the modern American setting. But frontline practitioners of the approach, such as Lithuania, have much to teach the United States about how to adequately prepare and respond to aggressive adversaries.

Given Lithuania’s geography and adverse historical relations with Russia, it has been developing its total defense system since the early 1990s. Indeed, the achievement of Lithuanian independence in the 1988-1991 period was partially the result of overall societal resistance against Soviet occupation forces. Since then, the country has pursued total defense measures in the military, economic, societal, and cultural domains. With the concept of a citizen obligation in total defense already embedded within the 1992 constitution, the 2000 Law on Armed Defense and Resistance Against Aggression specifically states that defense against aggression is obligatory for both the armed forces and every citizen.

While the country’s overall approach to total defense could be useful in the American context, the Lithuanian Riflemen’s Union (LRU), in particular, offers a tangible template that America could adapt to its own needs and characteristics. The LRU takes the idea of whole-of-society defense seriously, helping to model the path to broad-based total defense. It contributes to national defense, teaches patriotic education, and promotes national culture in a way that bridges the gap between the civil population and the country’s national security obligations.

Adversary threats are not coming to America’s shores. They’re already there.

The LRU is not a private militia, but a government-sponsored, volunteer state guard formation, led by a small cadre of active-duty military officers, falling under the supervision of the government of Lithuania. Not to be confused with its sister, the Ministry of Defense’s National Guard of Lithuania (National Defense Volunteer Forces), the LRU consists of 17,000 volunteer men and women of all ages and professions.

Founded on June 27, 1919, and re-established with the regaining of Lithuanian independence and the end of Soviet occupation in 1989, the LRU is dedicated to “fostering self-assured, innovative, and motivated citizens of the Republic of Lithuania who are prepared to defend their homeland and assist state institutions in times of crisis.”

While the LRU undertakes tasks assigned by state authorities, it’s a volunteer organization, and members, driven by a deep sense of duty, selflessly dedicate their free time to the defense and strengthening of the Lithuanian homeland. Members participate in one of four general activities: combat formations that receive regular training for integration into the armed forces during time of conflict; commandant units that assist and support the civil protection and rescue system for crises ranging from natural disasters to COVID; specialized units that capitalize upon civilian skills in areas like cyber or drone technology; and educational detachments that work with young people providing citizenship education and a range of life and survival skills.

The latter task is highly significant for building societal resilience, and the LRU has approximately 6,000 Young Riflemen active across Lithuania, which contribute to the Union’s ranks. Additionally, in collaboration with the Lithuanian Ministry of Education, the LRU conducts a mandatory three-day Citizenship and Defense Skills Course for ninth-graders across Lithuania.

In terms of real-world operations, the LRU assisted government authorities during the 2020-2023 coronavirus pandemic. It was also deployed in support of the Lithuanian State Border Guard Service during the 2021-2022 border crisis with Belarus, where the latter sponsored illegal migrants into Lithuania as part of its hybrid warfare efforts against NATO.

To help harden the United States against increasing threats, America could build on this innovative approach to civil defense by creating a civil defense corps. Such a civil defense corps would focus primarily on building resilience to protect critical infrastructure, including cybersecurity and the defense industrial base, as well as supercharging the country’s emergency preparedness capabilities. The program would be open to all eligible citizens under age 50, but would be targeted specifically at those ages 18 to 25 for a duration of at least five years.

The enabling legislation for such a corps should place it within the Department of Homeland Security with a formal direct relationship to the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). In an important difference from the LRU, the US version would be unarmed. While the civil defense corps would consist primarily of part-time volunteers, it would need to incentivize recruits by offering public service with tangible benefits—including credentialing training in civil defense, a reduction in federal income tax during the time served, and paths to full-time government service.

America is not Lithuania, of course. The United States is a superpower blessed by geography with a large and varied population. But adversary threats are not coming to America’s shores. They’re already there. It’s time for US civil defense frameworks to catch up, learn from allies and partners like Lithuania, and shift to a whole-of-society model of total defense.

This will not be a simple or inexpensive undertaking. But the standing up of a civil defense corps would be a welcome step in the right direction.