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Evaluating offers of contestants for public contracts belong to key and critical moments of public tenders and the whole acquisition process at all. Variety and comprehensibility of numerical and rating methods shouldn't prevent applicants from understanding conditions and terms of contract/agreement. The transparency principle of evaluating is only slowly pushing forward in our legal system. We move from mere subjectivistic and unverifiable impressions to the unbiased comparing of best offers, together with the requirement of transparency, as a part of the process of comparing, ranking, and assessing offers, by the use of specific qualitative or quantitative factors, such as prices, feasibility, collateral risks, time plan or other conditions. The final step is called amalgamation, when we merge individual classifications in one complex appraisal.

The Military Technical Institute of Ground Forces (VTÚPV) Vyškov was established in 1978 as a research authority and its activities have covered both requirements of the Army of the Czech Republic as well as the civilian sector. The VTÚPV Vyškov Division specializes in equipment, material and technologies of the ground forces. It solves tasks ranging from theoretical analyses and applied research and development to the prototype production phase, testing and validation, and small series production. It is an accredited testing laboratory for testing products and systems; it operates as an accredited certifying body for a large number of products. Since 2003 it is a part of the military repair shop VOP-026 Šternberk, s.p. (state enterprise) founded by the Ministry of Defence. The article enumerates its activities, namely just finishing semi-anechoic hall EMC (electromagnetic compatibility), the most important and most expensive investment project since the late 80s.

Under the auspices of Defence University Brno, for the third time, the social researchers executed the investigation of opinions and attitudes of Czech citizens towards the Army of the Czech Republic. It is a continual, systematic monitoring of long-run attitudes, perspectives, and preferences of Czech population, their stability or variability, preferences and priorities. It was measured by the sample survey (quota sampling). A total of 1,050 adult respondents (with a representative sample of 1,005 respondents) were polled by 62 interviewers. The first place among Army tasks took the help of the forces in time of natural disasters and ecology catastrophes (96.4 %); the second came the defence of Czech territory (85,2 %); and the third fight against terrorism (82,7 %). As less important is regarded the deployment of the Czech army abroad (55,4 %). All gathered data are presented on several graphs and schemes.

The very modern trends in the forces of advanced countries are hiring private civilian companies, private enterprises, in everyday performance of armed forces. As this phenomenon is very frequent, the authors decided to go into its roots, to find a common cause of this fact. In the past, armies were closed societies, self-sufficient, independent from states. Today, gradually, soldiers became more concentrated on key military tasks and supporting functions are transferred to private companies. The German Armed Forces (Bundeswehr) takes over mechanics used in private sector: it integrates economy dimension. Above all, it is transparency of bookkeeping, which ought to give evidence on savings in everyday life of forces. The Bundeswehr uses the so-called Market Testing, as a means of practical cooperation for engaging private capital. All those fact are cited as thoughprovoking.

This operation was led by Germany, and made up of elements contributed by twenty EU nations; as well as Turkey and Switzerland. The EU deployed FHQ in Kinshasa and simultaneously kept the over-the-horizon force in Gabon, in order to ensure a deterrent capacity and to avoid unnecessary heavy military presence in Kinshasa. After Operation Althea in Bosnia and Herzegovina, the EUFOR RD Congo was a second EU largest military operation, involving a total of almost 3,000 soldiers and officers). The co-operation with MONUC was decisive in containing the potential spread of violence at a particularly sensitive moment in the election process. The operation demonstrated the EU ability to successfully conduct medium scale autonomous multinational operations within a planned time frame under the UN mandate. The views expressed in this assessment are those of the author and do not reflect the official policy or position of EU Military Structure or the Czech Ministry of Defence. All information and data for this paper were drawn from unclassified sources.

Military professional terminology is a special vocational vocabulary used within armed forces, usually only partially understood by outsiders. The author demonstrates several most notorious examples to draw attention of terminology specialists. They are special vocabularies of military and security affairs, such as human resources, integrated MoD, recruit, recruitment, air wing, air base, strategical/tactical levels, names of organizational military structures, battalion, company, regiment (in fact they differ from nation to nation) task force, defence planning and planning of defence, to name at least a few. In spite of several translated AAP publications, generally, those terms are used in a different way. The author calls for creating more cohesive terminology. He intentionally does not put his own proposals, he only appeals to leading military officials to enforce the unified and accurate military terminology. It is high time to solve this task, namely within the frame of a lifelong education of military personnel.

This article covers the EUFOR RD Congo operation preparation phase and provides information on Military Strategic Planning Process, Military Operational Planning, Collaborative Planning, EU OHQ Potsdam activation and Force Generation Process. It describes planning period to highlight a pivotal role of training and education. Operation EUFOR RD CONGO was the EU second military intervention in the RDC, following Operation Artemis in 2003. The EUFOR RD CONGO mission was to support MONUC during running election process, in accordance with the UN Security Council Resolution 1671, authorizing the temporary deployment of an EU force in the RDC. The views expressed in this assessment are those of the author and do not reflect the official policy or position of EU Military Structure or the Czech MoD. All information and data for this paper were drawn from unclassified sources.

The second part of this short serial deals with the theory of the operational art focusing on the centre of gravity (COG). The article emanates from Carl von Clausewitz's ideas, doctrinal publications analysis and many study projects of the operational art theorists. The author especially aims on disunity and heterogeneity of comprehension of the centre of gravity theory in confrontation of contemporary doctrinal publications and original Clausewitz's theory. He compares operational manuals (those of U.S. and NATO), and finds similarities concerning characteristics, capabilities or localities from which a military force, nation or alliance, derives its freedom of action, physical strength or will to fight. Finally, he himself defines enemy's centre of gravity and highlights coherences that can affect fulfilling political and military objectives in current and future military operations.

Department by Ing. Jiří Dušek. The purpose of this article is to provoke discussion among military public dealing with economy in order to improve economy management in the forces. The author would like to point out the gap between officially proclaimed principles and true economy development in MoD department. Why proclaimed principles remain only on a sheet of paper and are not introduced in practice? In three theses are summarized the main problems to be resolved. The article is not conceived as a mere critique, it also features several proposals how to improve, optimalize, economy behaviour of the ACR. Among others he proposes to make us of 3E indicator (Economy, Effectiveness and Expediency), SWOT analysis, etc. Last but not least, he underlines the importance of economy education for army officers and leading civilian officials.

Some of the published critiques dealing with midterm planning are not true, as they were created without detailed knowledge of practice and methods how our midterm plan was created. Nevertheless, there are some real faults in midterm planning. According to the author, they are divided into two groups: external-they depend on quality of assignment; and internal-they are connected to the application of theory. Main external fault is the absence of long-term plan. In fact, it was introduced by the Order of Defence Minister, but it has not been worked up thoroughly. We lack adjusting main goals, tasks and priorities for MoD. Next problem are unstable and lacking financial sources. Internal mistakes are as follows: absence of mechanism for balanced changes between cycles of planning; implementation of life cycle cost and level of education of staff preparing data for planning.

At the beginning, the authors introduce modern history of chemical weapons, starting with the deployment of chlorine on April 22, 1915. In the early 70s, the US opened the project BLWS (Binary Lethal Weapons Systems) with the aim to replace old chemical arsenal and eliminate risks tied with the storage of chemical weapons, so did the Russians. Today, new generation of chemical weapons come into being, with higher toxicity, prepared by very simple procedures and means, very heavily degraded. We are proud that the Army of the Czech Republic belongs to those few armies oriented to building chemical-warfare units, specialized and trained to detect the presence of chemical weapons and to decontaminate persons, equipment and vehicles which have been affected by weapons of mass destruction (NBC).

The ACR is going to take part in expeditionary operations abroad, so we must be prepared to supply and sustain such forces. Problems with the provision of the bakery products in the military operation and mission include diet; economical, technological, safety; and psychosocial aspects. The ground forces are to be effective. Now we are developing premixes that meet the conditions of nutritional content of bakery products and the indigenous products with the protective function. The new utilized technology is based on preparing dough with improvers. Cost analysis of producing bread and pastry in operation was carried out with a surprising outcome: the costs of our own production are approximately 4-6 times lower than the costs of products from the local or other producers or participating armies (which is contrary to present-day official policy buying from outside suppliers).

At present, we pay great attention to alternative methods of teaching and learning foreign languages. Actually, it is difficult for language instructor to choose from among them. This article is a sort of hint to help teachers to pick up the most suitable one. Reciprocal teaching has its prominent position, namely in the field of reading with understanding. There four basic strategies: prediction, questioning, clarification, summarizing. During socio-cognitive conflict, in discussion, the language knowledge of learners (students) is pushed up and higher, learners are mutually influenced in social interaction. This learning process is sometimes recorded, monitored. The role of a teacher is multifaceted, indispensable and very demanding. New security threats ask for the transformation of NATO alliance, in the background of political Islam or the recent Russian-Georgian conflict. The contents analysis of presented papers points to main hidden problem lying behind all security questions: whether the U.S. would be able to continue in its role as a world leader, explicitly owing to American economy difficulties, e.g. today's financial and mortgage crisis.

It might be logical to occupy the main posts of enemy's command, but to take over the school? The Military Political Academy (MPA KG) constituted natural background of the so-called reformed forces, arising after the January 1968, at the beginning of the Prague's Spring. The MPA teachers and scholars outlined new prospects of European security development, among others with minor role of the Warsaw Pact, i.e. with the demand to rethink key principles of party's military policy, to reassess communist military doctrine. That's why the invaders regarded this university more dangerous then the then MoD. The review, eyewitness of those historic events, recollects prominent names not to be forget: Milan Ždímal, Vojtěch Mencl, Václav Prchlík, and shortly describes their following personal history.

The Centres of Gravity (COG) are characteristics, capabilities, or localities from which a military force derives its freedom of action, physical strength, or will to fight. The COG belongs among the most important operational concepts. It is the main source of power and strength. Without dermining enemy's COG we are not able to carry out any quick and resolute action, to reach ordered tasks, desired objectives. The primary purpose of this article is to offer basic information about this subject. This first part is concentrated predominantly to Carl von Clausewitz's ideas. The article especially aims on disunity and heterogeneity of comprehension of the COG theory in confrontation with contemporary doctrinal publications and original Clausewitz's theory. It highlights coherences that can affect fulfilling political and military objectives in current and future military operations.

It is said that at present, all means and knowledge necessary for any terrorist attacks are aviable on Internet network. Islamists regard Internet as a university of a special sort, without territorial boundaries, suitable for schooling and preparation of "sacred war". Internet users are decentralized, which is suitable for guerrilla fighters. By studying Qur?an (Koran), people are opened to indoctrination with global jihad. The Qur'an states that those who die in this type of jihad automatically become martyrs of the faith and are awarded a special place in heaven. Islamic law alleges that all nations 174 must surrender to Islamic rule. Indoctrinated terrorists could be and are united in their beliefs via electronic Internet pages, anywhere in the world, into one global cyber space. Electronic jihadists use notebooks and small electronic cameras to view and study suicide bomb attacks. The fight against such threat is endless, marked only by partial victories. Original article by Rolf Tophoven, Österreichische Militärische Zeitschrift, No 2, 2008

The article deals with the state of English e-learning on the premises of the University of Defence. The authoress introduces some pages of the electronic materials used for the General Staff Course as an example of modern methods of learning English. She explains the basic principles of the work with these exercises. There is also mentioned the military English interactive CD-Rom that was published last year and is used as the electronic support for learning military English; and also a new CD-Rom that is being developed now is mentioned because it will be used for the General Staff Course participants as well. Because of the fact that Czech military personnel are expected to serve in multinational operations, this interactive CD-Rom will make their language training easier. In the last part of the article, the opinions of the General Staff Course participants on using e-learning materials are given on the basis of questionnaires.

The act of making up commander's mind is one of most important roles of leaders/managers. The science of managing or controlling ought to be employed even in everyday life of the military. The skilful or resourceful use of materials, time, etc. are the main characteristics of command and control. The purpose of this article is to outline connections in management theory, namely managerial posts, coupled with command. How we can use management theory in shooting drills or marksmanship theory in commander's decisionmaking. The authors explain sequential managerial functions, planning, organizing, staffing, analysis and their implementation into shooting practice. The article is accompanied by several schemes. This exercise can be also used in modelling of combat clashes, as a part of simulations in computers and as a factor of the professional preparation of servicemen.

This contribution written by two leading Czech scholars in the field of military nutrition/food deals with the quality of energetic and nutrition of food rations and allowances in the Army of the Czech Republic. The food quality is set by a prescribed index of rational nutrition, consisting of energetic values of used foodstuff and the contents of key nutrients (proteins, fats, saccharides, minerals, and vitamins). Czech defence department sets monetary values and costs of sustenance rations, continuously adapted to the growth of retail prices of food and an average structure of consumption of individual food categories for a person per day. Besides the modification of food supplements, the authors propose to lower energy value of food rations and prefer their biological significance, with regard to contents of fatty acids.

It is not too often we could meet such a comprehensive monograph, dealing with security problems. Among such books belongs a book by Jan Eichler, with the same title, published by Charles University Prague, 2007. The most relevant chapter, Wars waged by the U.S. and its allies after the start of global terrorism, offers a provocative question, whether democratic nations, indirectly and unintentionally, gave rise to the upsurge of antipathy amongst the states with different political constitution, resulting in acts of terror? The ambiguous assessments of American wars in Afghanistan and Iraq seem to support author?s view. According to the reviewer, dr. A. Rašek, the author is wrong about the role land forces after the RMA?Revolution in Military Affairs. Without ground forces we are not able to win today?s asymmetrical warfare. The large part of book deals with conflicts not very familiar in the Czech Republic: Ethiopian-Eritrean war, disturbances in Somalia (operation Restore Hope), Burundi, Rwanda, Congo, Sierra Leone, Srí Lanka, Cashmere, Nepal, Haiti, Bolivia, and Colombia.

Anti-ballistic missiles are missiles designed to counter enemy's ballistic missiles. First, the author compares strategic patterns reflecting various eras of the former bipolar world. Their mutual balance of that time could be described as Mutual Assured Destruction (MAD). As long as MAD was a fact of life, the ABM Treaty fulfilled its important function as a cornerstone of strategic stability. Keeping nuclear arsenals at a level which is not even justifiable is selfcontradictory, as the military strategy and targeting policy is based on the capability of the other side, not on its intentions. Today's Russian policy is shaped by the status-driven desire to deal with the United States from a position of power-related symmetry and strategic parity, by negating the unique position of the United States. The American ballistic missile defence policy used to be also a central element of their containment strategy towards China. However, at present, Ballistic Missile Defence (BDM) sets as a top-priory the defence against the so-called rough states, rather than against Moscow or Beijing.

Intelligence activity is an essential part of psychological operations (PSYOPS). Intelligence data are collected, treated, and assessed by intelligence officers together with analytical specialists in cooperation with intelligence authorities from other services. Two basic documents are made. First, in British Army, it is called Country Area Study; in US forces it is labelled as PSYOP Basic Study. The second type of studies represents the assessment of target audience, called in British Army Basic Psychological Study, in US Special PSYOP Assessment. Gathered information are integrated into special electronic bases, e.g. SOCRATES (Special Operations Command, Research, Analysis and Threat Evaluation Data System), or POADS (Psychological Operations Automated Data System) used by the US Army. The rating of effectiveness of psychological campaigns is extremely difficult and consists of several phases. Even enemy's propaganda is analyzed. This process is of specific structure, categorized as SCAME (Source, Content, Audience, Media, and Effect). For PSYOPS operations is extreme important their precise timing. Legal Aspects of "Consciousness and Religion"

As the military's current fight against terrorists and insurgents does not follow the templates of the past, it requires innovative, adaptive thinking. This article summarises the main ideas of the essay "We the People are not the Center of Gravity in an Insurgency" by Maj. Mark P. Krieger, published in Military Review No. 4, 2007. A COG could be characterized as a source of power from which a military force derives its freedom of action, physical strength, will to act. The definition is important namely when military planners try to identify enemy COGs. There is a single COG at the operational level; the tactical level of war has decisive points. COGs organize and direct critical capabilities, physical or psychological. An insurgency's case is its strategic COG, its organization is operational COG, and the people are a decisive point at the tactical level. The population is important in an insurgency, because the people are a tangible to target, but it is not a COG. Attacking an insurgency?s organization will weaken the strategic COG that becomes vulnerable to attack and destruction.

Professional, or Professionalized NCO Corps by CSM Dušan Rovenský. This article covers the process of transition from conscript army to entirely professional, allvolunteer force (AVF). It deals with the role and responsibilities of NCOs generally, rank and grade structure, career rules, NCOs' training and education. The author identifies the problems of a rapid professionalization, discusses the possibilities for improvement and finally suggests the possible solutions to those problems. Among others, there is some sort of misunderstanding as far as Other Ranks/Enlisted corps is concerned. The Czech translations of those ranks do not always correspond to their general positions, ranks, responsibilities, command authority, the length of service of individual non-commissioned officers (NCOs), sergeants, or warrant officers (WOs). The author, Command Sergeant Major, Support and Training Forces Command (a graduate of U.S. Army Sergeants Major Academy Fort Bliss) puts forward several proposals to make those translations more precise.

In this article the author explores the potential roles for unmanned ground vehicles (tactical UGVs) in the modern battle space as pack mules, fighting scouts and perimeter sentries as new concepts of operation, designs and products emerge. Remote control vehicles could be also used in explosive ordnance disposal operations. Urban warfare looks set to become a particularly rich field for this sort of robots. The article discusses the challenges in developing and deploying cost-effective UGVs on the battlefield. There are still many problems, namely technological. The price for a UGV is comparable to price for four or five wheeled armoured vehicles. The article is based upon materials from RUSI Defence Systems (No. 2/2007), studies by Myron E. Mills, Kevin Ivison, James Masey. Ulf Stremmel; and Andy Simms: Robot Wars. Soldier, No. 12, 2007.

How to master foreign language? There are many methods the teacher can use. The authoress enumerates at least the most important ones: grammatical-translation method and communicative language teaching. Both methods are subdivided into smaller groups, emphasizing different aspects of teaching. The second method puts the stress on communication in practical life. The teacher is only a mediator, learners (students) take over responsibility for mastering foreign language. The language is used prevalently in tangible social context. This method could be called "natural approach". The language acquisition is hard and demands extreme efforts. It is 206 never ending process, assuming perpetual repetition of gained knowledge. At the end the authoress (language teacher at Komorní Hrádek Institute) describes her own experiences with learning foreign language.

This article deals with accrual accounting concept in the terms of the public sector, where-in this context-accrual accounting is understood as a basis of accounting under which transactions and other events are recognized when they occur, and not only when cash or its equivalents are received or paid. Therefore, the transactions and events are recorded in the accounting records and recognized in the financial statements of the periods to which they relate. At first, the article introduces briefly the history of accrual accounting concept implementation in the area of public sector. Secondly, it summarizes main possible benefits and risks connected with the implementation of accrual concept to the public sector accounting.

In NATO, here are many common items in welfare benefits, and there are different ones. Authoress depicts military social welfare in the CR, Slovakia, Germany, France, Poland, Hungary. The final part of this article compares systems of military benefits of mentioned countries. The authoress enumerates various conditions to be fulfilled, so that soldiers were entitled for welfare or retirement benefits. In nearly all countries, veteran?s pensions are regarded as the substitute for deferred, postponed pay. Retirement pays have its source in the last soldier?s salary. In the Czech Republic, retirement pays are based upon serviceman?s average best income in a calendar year, before he leaves the army, the time he served in the army, and its real income. Czech veteran?s social security scheme is separated from general (civil) social security system, as there some special military benefits that can?t be taken over by civil authorities.

Similar to the Czech Republic, all NATO nations have their own military territorial administrative authorities that both execute tasks of state administration and at the same time fulfil assignments of territory defence. Their overall numbers differ and mostly depend upon the fact whether the country has compulsory military service, alternatively military service is voluntary (professional army). Or as in the case of Greece, the scheme of Military Territorial Authorities is influenced by security situation in neighbouring areas. The author deals with Slovakia, Poland, Germany, Greece, and Spain. Those authorities have basic influence on recruitment, and manning, which is especially important in time of crisis, as the authorities have prepared manning system to increase numbers to prescribed volume.