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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 important part of the forces transformation deals with the problem reducing in numbers of officers, namely field officers and general corps in the Czechoslovak Armed Forces and lately the Army of the Czech Republic. The main cause of this reduction was new concept of military career, as before the transformation it used to be a lifelong profession. The downsizing started in 1990 and it ought to have been finished by the end of the first period of the Czech Armed Forces Reform, as of 2008/12/31/, but it appears that downsizing is endless. The author quotes figures concerning numbers of officers; several rank charts and tablets with corresponding NATO and Czech grades respectively are used to demonstrate veracity of his statements. According to Lt.Col. Pernica, the downsizing is going to continue but no one knows how many officers for the all-volunteer Czech armed forces will be enough.

At that time, the base for plural societies in Eastern Europe was founded. Poland, the Czech Republic and Hungary joined NATO defence alliance. Serious global threats of economic, military, ecology, social, ethnic, religious, criminal characters were lasting. The important question of proliferation of mass destruction weapons was raised. The analyses of security situations in Europe and the World respectively proved that armed conflicts were mostly internal, in a form of civic wars, but demographically endangering bordering countries. Those threats were only discussed, namely nobody fully realized the threat of terrorism. Defence budgets were reduced, all people wanted to profit from the so-called peace dividends. Czech army was loyal to the state; it was not misused in inner political conflicts, which was regarded as something normal by the majority of Czech public. But there were many problems left, especially the role and engagement of the ACR in the following century.

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.

The administrative culture is something like "mind set" of "software" of organization, its philosophy, a part of which is the so-called economization. The process of economization of defence sphere will lead to further decrease in numbers, cutting down redundant materiel, supplies. Such economy measures should produce savings in terms of hundred millions Czech crowns, side by side with the increased potential of the whole military organization. The authors introduce Activities in Defence Sector the CAF model (Common Assessment Framework), based upon the Model Excellence of the European Foundation for Quality Management, expressed by the following formula: factors involved equals personnel times activities (education) times facilities (investments). There are some similarities between army management and business administration, so the economy instructions ought to be part of overall military education and training.

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.

The essay summarizes several articles published in Vojenské rozhledy dealing with mass media and its activities during armed conflicts or peace-support operations. In fact, more attention to war information is paid by civilian press or books. The author, PhDr. Antonín Rašek (-ar-) cites e.g. English sociologist D. Hallin The 'The Uncensored War', D. Kellner The Persian Gulf TV War, and some books or reportages by Czech journalists and authors, K. Hvižďala, P. Procházková, V. Bělohradský, T. Halík, etc. The Vietnam War was the first televised war and it was largely uncensored. People saw the true horror of war on their television screens night after night, and that caused them to turn against the war. The media seems to be influencing the direction of government policy; the American military always claimed the media caused the war to be lost. But today, namely during the wars in Iraq, the media are blamed to be too subordinated to official policy, they present "a war of choice as a war of necessity". "Abedded" journalists and stringers sell war stories and information, their primary purpose is to make money. An example of the strict control of war information is Chechnya, closed for independent journalists and the only information available is released through official information's agencies, both Russian and opposing Chechen forces.

The conscription is a system of compulsory enrolment of men and women into the armed forces. Conscripts may be called to serve in time of peace in order to train for war; they may be called into uniform in time of emergency. Conscripts are distinguished from volunteers and professionals, as well as from mercenaries, who offer their service to any government solely for pay. Recent general discussion regarding reducing duties to perform military service in the Czech Republic between 2000 and 2005 has indicated that the sense of citizens' responsibility for the defence their country is limited, in public eyes, to the conscription only. In reality, the sphere of citizens' defence liabilities is much broader. The comprehensiveness of this issue comes to light particularly when we compare the practice in this area in different NATO nations. In this particular case, the article indicates one of possible solutions to these efforts, i.e. a systemizing approach.

This article is a sequel to the previous disputes over financial management within the Czech Armed Forces. The origins of the first polemic article lay in gaining facts for research work, arranged by the Faculty of Economics and Management, Defence University, "Allocation and Management of Defence Sources of the CR and the Formation of Economic Thinking in the ACR". The system of planning, programming and budgeting (PPBS) was introduced into Czech forces several years ago, but the it did not worked in a way it was supposed. There were many deficiencies the PPB system suffered from. Unfortunately, the author lacks sufficient data to evaluate properly the performance of this system. He has to combine diverse data sources, booklets, statistics, data releases, to make accurate picture of a day-to-day financial military administration. In his opinion, the system is not transparent enough. He appeals for clear figures, released e.g. on army interned pages, to avert accusation of wasting public sources ...168

The main theme of this extensive paper is ethical evaluation of the state of affairs in Iraq that would play greater role - directly or indirectly - in the decision-making of foremost politicians, more role then we might think. Although the author quotes various positive or negative attitudes towards the war, he does not intend to prove or refute presented theses. He broadly treats e.g. the so-called just-war, events when imminent threat might be a case for war, moral clarity in a time of war, situations when we consider that our aims might be achieved by peaceful means. Last but not least, he writes about attitudes of church leaders, the Holy See, lines of their reasoning. The armed forces are called upon to do their duty. The greater the threat, the grater is the risk of inaction, the more compelling the case for taking anticipatory actions. In such case, the governments make their final decisions. It is not the responsibility of church-leaders or military commanders. To obey it, it would not be in conflict with the churches teaching. In these circumstances, the troops could regard an order to go to battle as morally decent, in pursuit of a moral good purpose.

Economy of production, economies to scale, in civilian sector are quite different than economy pattern in defence sphere, as specifying the allocation of sources for the Army of the Czech Republic is not based on exact calculation of costing, payments as we could not observe the substantial terms of comparable partial and overall expenses. At present, we are not fully able to compare defence outputs, nor effecitivity of spent sources.

The end of conscription (i. e. national service) is accompanied by a dozen of economy implications that ought to be respected. Among others, there is a problem of non-military activities being done by soldiers during their compulsory military service. Supposedly, many of those activities can be performed by private entrepreneurship. One of possible solutions is the socalled "outsourcing". Our Army might buy services and supplies outside the forces, in civilian sector. Similar practices should reduce Army's expenses for labour, outlays for materials, maintenance, etc. Outsourcing directs public expenditures to places where labour and material costs are lower than in the ACR. But, we must not forget, there is one precondition; the public sector must be factually economical, with low expenses in competitive surrounding.