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The Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP), on the basis of which the EU builds its defence identity, has a broad spectrum. It focuses not only on the defence component of the CSDP, but also on associated areas such as defence industry and market, defence research and development, and supports them with related legislation and various policy and financial instruments. On the one hand, this prevents the issue of European defence from being easily confined. On the other hand, this reflects the robustness of the EU's approach to European defence and its willingness to mobilize all available resources. The article describes the evolution of European defence, its major milestones and actors, related processes and rules, and the key tools that are now largely concentrated under the umbrella of the CSDP. Current issues of European defence, including scenarios of its possible future development, are also addressed, as well as the contribution of the Czech Republic.

After a short review of defence R&D history, the author concludes that our country used to reach world's level in some fields: passive warning systems, NBC protection, military surgery, explosives. After the change of political system in 1989 we began to dispose Czech military industries. The only scientific place to left is Defence University Brno, but it is an institution more or less concentrated on education. It is almost impossible to maintain pace with foreign defence industry. In the article there is an exhaustive list of military plants, institutions after 1989, together with the date of their closing down. It is followed by research orientation of defence industry, set according to time periods. The special chapter concentrates on financing defence research, the closing part deals with the period of our membership in NATO. Although there are same positive aspects, such as international cooperation, exploiting sources from abroad, strategical control declined. We see unwise reductions in personnel, abolishing accredited institutions, etc.

The Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP), on the basis of which the EU builds its defence identity, has a broad spectrum. It focuses not only on the defence component of the CSDP, but also on associated areas such as defence industry and market, defence research and development, and supports them with related legislation and various policy and financial instruments. On the one hand, this prevents the issue of European defence from being easily confined. On the other hand, this reflects the robustness of the EU's approach to European defence and its willingness to mobilize all available resources. The article describes the evolution of European defence, its major milestones and actors, related processes and rules, and the key tools that are now largely concentrated under the umbrella of the CSDP. Current issues of European defence, including scenarios of its possible future development, are also addressed, as well as the contribution of the Czech Republic.

Most experts believe that urban operations will gain importance in the future, but even though we have sufficient examples and experience at hand, we still struggle with the development of the necessary skills and capabilities. The resulting gaps are a combination of different tasking and shrinking resources in the past decades, the difficulty of training for and a mere misunderstanding of the urban environment and harmful innovations - we seem to find ourselves always in the beginning. Fighting in isolated "prisms of responsibility" requires flexible task forces with all necessary enablers at hand and well-trained commanders exercising mission command and understanding their role, task, and the purpose of action. Mastering the urban environment on all three levels of movement is a very challenging task and requires focused attention on various aspects, inter-actor interaction and interdisciplinary research and development. The development of a methodology suitable for looking into the hidden aspects and contextualizing them with current activities and future developments is key to capability development.

This paper deals with teaching of operations research at University of Defence and its support by means of using selected software for linear programming. The main aim of the paper is to demonstrate possibilities of using the add-in program Solver in Microsoft Excel and Linear Program Solver in teaching operations research via solving an illustrative example of linear programming problem. The paper further introduces operations research as a scientific discipline and a course taught at University of Defence. Last but not least, it discusses advantages and drawbacks of introducing software into teaching of operations research.

The article addresses the use of social media intelligence (SOCMINT) as a tool for recruiting and selecting souces by foreign intelligence services, with an emphasis on the risks it poses to students in military studies at national military universitiy. It analyzes the specific ways in which SOCMINT enables foreign intelligence agencies to effectively gather personal data and profile potential collaborators from both public and private information shared online. Research conducted among students of the University of Defense and other institutions revealed that military students share comparable types of information on social networks as their civilian peers, making them equally vulnerable to the activities of foreign intelligence services. However, military students are preparing for careers in defense and security, making them a significantly more attractive target for foreign intelligence agencies than other categories of employees.

The paper presents selected knowledge and findings of the sociological survey, which was focused on identifying the needs and problems of modern war veterans leaving the military service in 2018. The findings of the research point to recurrent problems in communication and information transmission to the ending soldiers in their service as well as the lack of information in relation to the resort's offers of care and assistance to war veterans. The subjects involved in the war veteran care system do not always have full current information, which may lead to negative reactions and attitudes of some military personnel that the setting system does not adequately respond to soldiers' problems and needs, especially before leaving military service.

This article presents the first systematic analysis of cognitive resilience education within the Czech Ministry of Defence, which is growing in importance in the context of contemporary hybrid threats. Through methodological triangulation (document analysis, questionnaires, interviews), the research maps the coverage of relevant topics across all levels of formal military education. The SWOT analysis reveals both existing foundations for cognitive resilience development and the absence of a systematic approach to this issue. The results highlight three main challenges for transforming the educational system: systematisation of the approach, personnel resources, and infrastructure modernisation. The study establishes an empirical basis for strategic recommendations to strengthen military personnel resilience against information and psychological operations.

There has never been so much primary data on al-Qa'ida publicly available. Nevertheless primary data are still not used enough, despite the fact that their omission had a clearly detrimental effect on the quality of research on al-Qa'ida. The article's goal is twofold: to lay out an overview of the publicly available sources of primary data on al-Qa'ida and by highlighting interesting aspects of their content to demonstrate their usefulness for the research in general. The article deals particularly with outputs of public institutions, al-Qa'ida's members' publications, al-Qa'ida's members' communication that has been made public and leaked classified information. The topic how to use the sources of primary data will be discussed briefly. The article aims at encouraging the academic and expert community to use primary data more broadly when researching al-Qa'ida.

The article contributes to a more efficient use of the theoretical, technological and application base, especially to the improvement of decision-making processes at the strategic level. It offers a methodological framework for solving the armed forces capability optimization problem by implementing modeling, simulation and operations research tools and theories.

The paper is focused on research of military operations planning with the purpose of defining an efficient decision-making model at the tactical level for brigade-level offensive operation. Suggested model applies methods of multi-criteria decision-making – DIBR II (Defining Interrelationships Between Ranked Criteria II) and EDAS (Evaluation based on Distance from Average Solution) in order to decrease subjectivity while evaluating and ranking criteria, but also to select the most optimal course of action (COA). DIBR II method is used for the evaluation and determination of criteria coefficients, while the EDAS method enables choice between the most optimal COA. Application of simple and effective methods of multi - criteria decision - making accelerates the planning process and enables commanding officer to make optimal troop employment decision in a given operation.

Accurate meteorological data is crucial for precise artillery fire, yet its availability can be compromised in combat conditions. This study investigates the impact of limited meteorological information on artillery accuracy and explores potential mitigation strategies. By analysing upperair data from a single weather station, we simulated various scenarios of reduced meteorological support. Our findings highlight the significance of meteorological factors on artillery performance and the potential consequences of inadequate data. We developed a foundational framework for offline artillery support products, emphasizing the need for robust methods to estimate atmospheric conditions in data-scarce environments. Future research will focus on incorporating advanced modelling techniques and additional data sources to enhance the accuracy and applicability of these products.

Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear (CBRN) weapons still represent a relevant threat despite international treaties and regulations. International projects like the Permanent Structured Cooperation (PESCO) of European Union (EU) appears as a suitable way of the further development when considered both complexity and expensiveness of the countermeasures to the CBRN. In this work, basic principles of PESCO, limitations, opportunities and expected directions of innovations were searched. The final recommendations on PESCO projects in the CBRN field are founded on the reached findings. Recommendations and conclusions on limited PESCO efficacy on one side and opportunity to resolve weakness of the Army of the Czech Republic (AČR) in the CBRN by collaboration in the EU on the other were particularly described in this paper. Without the collaboration, the AČR will hardly reflect the progress on CBRN defense.

The article analyzes key aspects of the development of the Czech Republic‘s defense policy since 1989, with a focus on the role of strategic culture. It examines historical, political, and social factors that have shaped the Czech Republic‘s approach to defense and security issues. Special attention is given to the transformation of the Czech Armed Forces, the transition to a professional military model, and responses to changing geopolitical threats. The analysis also considers public perceptions of the military, the influence of historical narratives on strategic culture, and the attitudes of political elites toward defense matters. The article highlights the importance of strategic culture as an analytical framework for understanding long-term trends and the evolution of defense policy, while suggesting potential avenues for future research in the Czech context.

The article holistically assesses the US application of security-development nexus (SDN) through the most known example of SDN in practice - provincial reconstruction teams (PRTs) - to elucidate what lessons learned can be drawn from there. The PRT's unique small footprint approach aimed to skip combat phases and focus on development in Panjshir. The research detected fourteen lessons learned from PRT's Panjshir wrongdoings and relatively successful initiatives. Lessons learned include defining mission objectives, early identification of instability sources, unified funding, emphasis on security sector reform, cultural awareness, empowering locals, and continuity in leadership and mission. PRT Panjshir's approach is debated, emphasizing managing, not fully resolving, complex conditions. Depending on contextual factors and learned lessons, the model's duplicability in future conflicts remains uncertain.

This article focuses on the identification of key factors of material resources in the field of equipment, armaments and military vehicles within the Czech state needed for effective mobilization. The primary goal is to answer the question of whether the Army of the Czech Republic still has adequate supplies of these key resources and whether it has the ability to increase these resources in crisis situations without significant dependence on foreign imports. The above analysis revealed mostly sufficient stocks, but at the same time significant limitations were identified in some categories, especially in their technical and moral quality (obsolescence, respectively), especially in most types of military vehicles. The issue of dependence on foreign imports concerning raw materials then changes considerably, from the minimum (combat dress) to the almost maximum (ballistic helmet) level.

The research described in this paper was conducted in the framework of institutional research project Strategic Alternatives (STRATAL) within the Centre for Security and Military Strategic Studies of University of Defence in Brno, the Czech Republic. The main objective of this contribution is to assess the evolution of the Czech defence policy (CDP) since the last summer 2016. The main impetuses for the CDP evolution were provided by the NATO Summit in Warsaw, new European Global Strategy including the ambition to enhance defence cooperation among the EU member states and the pattern of dynamics in our security environment. The authors analysed the key change drivers (KCDs) and measures taken in political, military, administrative, economical and societal domain in order to evaluate the overall effectiveness of the defence policy. Finally, the authors offer several recommendations to enhance the responsiveness and preparedness of the Czech defence system and the Armed Forces both in short- and long-term time span.

The article deals with the possibility of using simulation technologies in the training of students of the University of Defence in tactical training and seeks to answer the question whether the use of these means brings demonstrable effectiveness by means of an experiment. First-year students in a Field Training course were randomly divided into 42 sections of approximately equal numbers and then assigned to 3 categories based on their use of live and virtual simulation. All groups were assigned points for a specific tactical activity during the final exercise. The total scores of all groups were subjected to a subsequent statistical investigation using a one-factor analysis of variance on the data to examine whether there were statistically significant differences between the groups. Although students' use of modern simulation technology had a perceived positive effect on improving the quality of training, there was no evidence of statistically significant differences between the groups studied using statistical methods. However, the results of the experiment do show to some extent that some differences do exist between the groups and therefore leaves some opportunity to conduct similar, or more extensive research, in an effort to promote the attractiveness of the training process to military school students.

Military spending is a widely discussed topic, especially in the current geopolitical landscape. Expenditures on "equipment" play a pivotal role in total defense spending.. However, the nature of the equipment expenditures is cumulative. Thus, when trying to estimate the capability of a state we should consider a longer period, not just one year. The aim of this article is, therefore, to offer (i) an exploratory analysis of the cumulative equipment expenditures of NATO countries between 2014-2023 and (ii) to verify - by using OLS multivariate regression - the extent to which the GDP per capita primarily drives these expenditures (adjusted per soldier), the share of defense spending from the GDP, or by the fraction of defense spending that goes specifically to equipment. The results show that the GDP per capita is by far the most powerful predictor.

The paper evaluates the level of cooperation between the Ministry of Defence and the NATO Support and Procurement Agency (NSPA) in the field of procurement of military equipment. In the practical part, the results of the research on the level of participation of Czech-based suppliers in NSPA activities between 2018 and 2022 are presented. Pareto analysis comparing the participation of the Czech and international companies in contracts implemented by NSPA in terms of their subject, quantity and financial value is used. Qualitative case studies from three different areas illustrate in which NSPA projects the Czech Republic has already been involved in and which benefits and risks are associated with this cooperation for the MoD. Positives and drawbacks in the process of acquiring military equipment in-house and opportunities and threats that may arise from the acquisition of military equipment through the NSPA are summarised in the form of the SWOT analysis. Finally, recommendations are presented on how to improve the cooperation between the MoD and the NSPA in the field of acquisition.

Leadership and its styles have been in the spotlight for many years. The changing military environment and demands on army readiness bring new questions and perspectives to leadership. Leaders now face constant changes and specifications of the new modern era. Concerning these changes and transformations in society and the Army, there are new demands on soldiers and leaders at all levels of the Army of the Czech Republic. This paper provides insight and muse about both transactional and transformational leadership styles and investigates an approach to these styles by Czech military students. This paper aims to identify what leadership style Czech military students prefer at the University of Defence. This research focused on evaluating the personal characteristics required for a leadership position. To verify the relevance of the gained results, we employed paired t-test.

The article deals with the artillery manual gunnery in accordance with the modernization of the czech artillery. The article describes the results of research aimed at innovating manual (alternative) methods of determining the firing data so that they are applicable on the contemporary battlefield and are compatible with the nature of the data used by artillery within the NATO. The issue of the article is aimed primarily at determining the firing data by the use of meteorological techniques, while presenting the outputs of a comparative analysis of procedures used in the czech artillery with the procedures applied by the US army. The main contribution of the article is a critical evaluation of the approaches of both armies and a proposal for innovation of existing procedures so that the most beneficial requirements are applied and negatives are eliminated.

The article examines the impact of recent geopolitical, economic, and security changes on logistics support capabilities in EU and NATO member states. The study analyzes the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and the armed conflict in Ukraine on logistics supply chains, considering environmental, social, and security concerns. The research questions focus on identifying the main changes and assessing their implications for commercial, military, and humanitarian logistics. The prolongation of the conflict in Ukraine and the economic sanctions imposed on Russia have been found to have a significant impact on logistics capabilities, perceptions of the structure of supply chains and the risks arising from this. The impact of these events is also producing third-country poverty and dehumanizing the UN SDG goals. On the other hand, improvements in NATO troop readiness and weaponry have been noted. The study highlights the need for further research to investigate specific threats for different types of supply chains and to consider the complex and evolving nature of the issue. Ultimately, this research provides insights into the challenges and opportunities facing logistics capabilities in the context of ongoing geopolitical and environmental changes.

The article concerns the issue of arson attacks in Israel.The issue of terrorism in Israel is quite broad, given that it is a very common phenomenon here and Israel deals with terrorism on a daily basis. The paper therefore focuses on incendiary balloons, a weapon that repeatedly caused fires around the Gaza Strip between 2018-2023. It examines their history, their design, outlines the possibilities of their elimination, the advantages and disadvantages of possible technical solutions, and a reflection on the future of their usage.

The assessment of force ratios and battle casualties is a crucial aspect of the military decision-making process. This article evaluates three different tools used by the Army of the Czech Republic at the tactical level: a calculator based on Lanchester's laws, a module within the Battle Information System, and a constructive simulation system. The results indicate that while all tools produce similar outputs, the constructive simulation system offers more accurate estimates of combat losses for both equipment and personnel. Additionally, this system enhances the ability of commanders and staff to adapt to changing scenarios during planning. The primary conclusion is that the constructive simulation system provides a practical and flexible solution for supporting the military decision-making process at the brigade and battalion levels.

This study aimed to explore the media’s perception of the military and militant activities, focusing on journalists’ professional conduct and their commitment to the national cause. In-depth interviews were conducted with Pakistani journalists reporting from conflict zones. The findings suggest that Pakistan is engaged in a war on terror and that the media plays a key role in glorifying the security forces in their fight against militants who challenge the authority of the state. Journalists expressed the view that the government and military should take realistic measures to combat this threat. While journalists described militants as terrorists, they also noted that their professionalism is often influenced by patriotism and a national duty to serve the country. However, objectivity remained a key element of their reporting. The media, considered the fourth pillar of the state, should have the necessary freedom to report on conflicts. At the same time, self-censorship was considered necessary to prevent content that could lead to radicalization.

The paper deals with an insurgent strategic concept "leaderless resistance". It was elaborated by US intelligence officer Colonel Ulius Louis Amoss. It is used by various insurgent actors and it is researched within the context of insurgency and counterinsurgency and interconnected issues (extremism, terrorism etc). The author of this contribution deals with the development tendencies and with the strengths and weaknesses of this strategy (including the derived concepts as "leaderless Jihad" etc.). Its adaptation in the era of modern political and hybrid warfare is explained. Challenges for successful countering from the point of view of security architecture (intelligence and law enforcement agencies, army, non-.state actors) are discussed.

The process of procuring military equipment, technology, material, and associated services (VM) is frequently shrouded in concerns about cost-effectiveness and, in some instances, even becomes the focus of law enforcement investigations. This often leads to delays in strategic investments and exposes involved individuals to the risk of criminal charges. Additionally, there is a notable lack of capacity to impartially evaluate the overall investment's efficacy. Consequently, the "Znalec" (Expert Witness) project was initiated as a part of the defense research program. Its objective is to explore the feasibility of establishing an expert institute that could impartially assess the value of the military procurements, set a standard for evaluating these assets, and outline a training program for relevant experts. This paper specifically addresses the first objective of the project, proposing a legal framework for the expert institute based on an extensive systems analysis.

The article follows the author's comparative analysis of American and Russian nuclear doctrines and armaments from the fall of 2021. It presents the current nuclear strategy of the United States of America based on a content analysis of three specific areas of the updated version of the Nuclear Posture Review. Applying interpretive analysis and a rich secondary sources apparatus, the author also reflects on his 2021-formulated assumptions and expectations about the further development of American nuclear strategy under President Joe Biden. The author analyzes the influence of the presidential administration's ideological and political ambitions together with the decisive geopolitical events of 2022 and concludes that mainly due to the second factor, the current shape of American nuclear strategy has not undergone any revolutionary changes and continues to maintain a long-standing continuity and consensus about its basic principles.