This book is an experimental application of the conceptual framework for resilience analysis of complex adaptive systems to the comparative social and economic history of modern Lithuania. It examines Lithuania's food and energy resilience in the event of a potential military conflict on its territory, should the Russian-Ukrainian war escalate into a Russian-NATO war, by considering the current state of Lithuania’s food and energy security in a longue duree perspective. Located between the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad province in the West and the Russian ally Belarus in the East, it is the NATO country expected to be the first target of a Russian attack to close the Suwalki gap separating Kaliningrad province from Belarus. Is this nation living in the most dangerous place within the actual EU borders, capable of surviving and recovering from the next war shock? Has its food and energy resilience increased or decreased compared with the periods of the two former World Wars, when it was the site of intense military action too, and was subject to extremely extractive and oppressive foreign occupations?

Zenonas Norkus is Distinguished Professor of Comparative Historical Sociology at Vilnius University, Lithuania.