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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.

The major topic of this article is the problem of radical Islam in the context of contemporary as well as historical development in Europe. In the course of several chapters the author describes basic facts of the modern phenomenon of Islamisation, impending over Europe. His study is supported from several sources, e.g. Gadhafi M., Islam taking over Europe (2006); or reports issued by the Netherlands Security and Intelligence Service (2005); Swiss Country Report on Islamisation (2007), etc. There are over 50 million Muslims in Europe, if Turkey is added to the EU, Europe will have another 50 million Muslims. When terrorism can be considered as a danger, Islam should be considered as a risk to generate such a danger. The democratic state is fully entitled to diagnose any kind of "side effects" as a result of Islamic preaching. This is not judging the religion but its effects on the system. The solution is long-lasting: to support cultural integration, because only a few European Muslims are involved politically, or take part in terrorist attacks.

This year, the Defence University published the book titled Risk Management, by Brig. Prof. Ing. Rudolf Urban, CSc., and Prof. Ing. Rudolf Božek, CSc., as a textbook offering comprehensive glance at topical questions of impending risks and responses to match them. Risks are in fact part of our everyday life, out aspiration must be not to create unnecessary risks, constituted risks as fast as possible eliminate. The authors give a definition of many terms, together with their English counterparts. Especially they draw our attention to terms used wrongly in newspapers or magazines. This reviewed monograph is of highest quality and the peer reviewer recommends it to all qualified readers, not only to those who are professionally interested in security problems. Security Forum '08 by PhDr. Antonín Rašek. In February 2008 the Security Forum took place in Slovakian city Banská Bystrica. The collection of 32 presented papers was issued by Matěj Bél University. This review summarizes main ideas of those papers, in a form of cross-section study. The reviewer finds most inspirative Maersheimer's neorealistic theory of stability, classifying bipolarity above multipolarity, which is reflected in consequent evaluation of security threats.

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

This article deals with the birth of a new concept in the field of the warfare-FORCE XXI, the long-terms vision that influenced all advanced militaries, among others the author introduces a list with names of programmes: USA (Land Warrior), Great Britain (FIST - Future Integrated Soldier Technology), Canada (ISSP - Integrated Soldier System Platform), Germany (IdZ - Infanterist der Zukunft), France (FELIN - Fantssin a Equipement et Liaison Intégrés), the Netherlands (SMP - Soldier Modernisation Programme), Norway (NORMANS - Norwegian Modular Artic Network Soldier), Denmark (Danish Soldier Modernisation), Belgium (BEST - Belgium Soldier Technology), Italy (Soldato Futuro), Portugal (Sodado do Futuro), Slovakia (PIBS - advanced combat individual system) Poland (Tytan). The author underlines fundamental changes within this course of study, both technical-implementation of new technologies and weaponry-and doctrinal. He also describes current situation within the Armed Forces of the Czech Republic.

Management by objectives (MBO), first outlined by Peter Drucker in the 1950s, is a systematic and organized approach that allows management to focus on achievable goals and to attain the best possible results from available resources. The tasks are delegated to subordinates without dictating a detailed roadmap for implementation. Everybody within the organization has a clear understanding of the aims, or objectives, as well as awareness of their own roles and responsibilities in achieving those aims. In the U. S. Army, MBO was implemented into The Army Plan FY 2000-2015, with 789 operational capabilities, divided into 1,248 operational standards, but without demonstrable success, as the system worked rather formally; it was too complicated. The same was true in the Czech Army, where e.g. The Set of Objectives till 2005 came into existence in 1991. The author tries to explain why. He concludes that MBO can be a useful management tool in the army environment, but it should not be realized without proper understanding this process.

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.

At present, we are going through army transformation, represented among others by lowering military expenditures. One of many questions accompanying this process is a purposeful and functional spending money for military purchases. The authoress, the former teacher at Defence University Brno, explains her method of multicriteria decisionmaking during shaping the algorithmic program eliminating non-optimal behaviour, suitable for all, military and state, officials, who are in contact with external providers (suppliers). Introduced method is transparent one and could be used namely for small public orders, explicitly during concluding contracts without legally fixed terms. The proposed method is demonstrated upon a concrete example of realized contract.

Terrorism threatens to attack and destroy the open democracy, but what is terrorism? The main aim of this essay is to formulate some proposals of a minimal operational definition tied with terrorism, as well as a definition of terrorist attack with the ambition to surpass a possibility of an ambiguous construction in the field of semantical research. Terrorism is usually described as unlawful violent activism targeted against civilians or against civilian targets with the aim of achieving political, religious, ideological and other goals. It presents wellconsidered ways of production and fructification of fear that are applied on civilian targets. A terrorist attack communicates devastatingly as a pure act of violence inside the psychosomatic structure of its recipients (victims). The new terrorism after 9/11 attacks could be characterized by fanaticism and the impending danger of arms of mass destruction. It is a culture of death.

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 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.

This article deals with the EU command and control functions and provides basic information on the structure and capabilities of the EU CCS in Battle Group EU operations. The author describes political and strategical levels CCS (COREPER, GAERC, COPS, CivCom, EUMC, EUMS, BDE HQ, prospective EU FHQ). Only US, EU and E3 (Britain, France, Germany) are capable to realize integrated expeditional operations. The ACR can work only with cooperation with them. The Czech Republic as a small EU member state is actively engaged in the building of the Battle Group EU. The Czech Army is going to increase its expeditionary capabilities as demanded and be prepared for a broader range of conflicts and crises in the vital area of the EU concerns. At present, the ACR is able to carry out a self-supported, integrated expedition operation only on the edge of all its strength. The political leaders must bear this fact in mind, as the army mustn't be overburdened, otherwise it might lose its credibility. All information and data for this paper were drawn from unclassified sources.

At present, artillery problems are rather neglected. Artillery brigade, which consists of two arty battalions, can form two division task forces, up to two brigade task forces, or several battalion task forces. This presupposes establishing unified chain of command points. At present, we may form three main command points of division, brigade and battalion task force. The author depicts tasks and missions of individual levels of task forces, their composition, main elements of command and control. Special attention is paid to centres of combat support, or places of combat support at battalion level. At present, commanders of combat units do not use fully potential of artillery support. Therefore it is necessary to discuss those problems, so that our artillery could be used in most efficient way. The article is accompanied by several charts and pictures, showing schemes and tasks of artillery forces and standardized operational procedures.

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.

Most people think that working in archives stands for activity with old documents, arranged upon bookshelves. Only few people know that archives means handling information. Today, data are not only in written form on paper, pieces of information are recorded on electronic media. Keeping archives is a part of national heritage; it has informational, scholarly and cultural functions (§ 2, Act No. 499/2004, Archives and Files Services). The author summarizes nearly 90 years of military archives, founded in 1919 by the famous Czech historian Jaroslav Werdstat, as a section of the Czech Country Archives. Very often the Military Archives have gone through difficult periods, and probably with regard to today's army priorities, we could expect uneasy progress even in the near future. This field is not in the centre of attention of army representatives, as it usually does not attract their attention.

Politicians Raise Support?) by Col. Ing. Tomáš Rak. The fact that nuclear weapons has not been employed for more over 60 years doesn't mean that they are of no use. On the contrary, they still serve as the most effective tool of determent. At present, we do not face some superpower, but a multitude of various small, namely Islamic groups. The nuclear threat has returned in the form of terrorists who, unlike Soviet Union leaders, would not hesitate to use such weapons. We face a very real possibility that the deadliest weapons ever invented could fall into dangerous hands. No treaty, no ban on such weapons, no international law will guarantee that they won't be used by the so-called "non-state actors," potential "rogue states", or messianic groups expecting the end of the world. The author recollects the case of A. Q. Khan, who sold his country's nuclear secrets, helping to increase the proliferation of nuclear technology on a wide scale.

The author compares two scholarly books: World's Tension Epicentres by M. Šlachta (published in 2007) and Security Policy of the Czech Republic by the team of authors headed Jaroslav Janda. The latter study of 1996 uses different terminology: instead of today's favourite teams threat or security threats, they are civilizational risks, economical risks, military risks, environmental risks and so on. The special attention is paid to undemocratic, autocratic states, violating humane rights. Those who owned nuclear weapons are regarded as especially dangerous to peace. Those risks have multiplications effects, they could be solved only by collective effort of all interested states. The recent history confirms predictions made by the team of Jaroslav Janda. The analysis by Mojmír Šlachta contributes to deeper understanding present state of affairs, among others it covers rising Islamic word.

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).

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.

One of most important tasks of the Army of the Czech Republic is the preparation for country defence, be prepared to defend the republic against attacks from outside, with the use of Allied defence system. The core of manning in time of danger or war is recruitment of all people coming under compulsory conscription and those with the duty of extra service. Even though the compulsory military service (national service) was abolished in 2004 and the ACR became fully professionalized, Czech population is obliged to conscription/draft. All men/women over the age of 18 till 60 could be conscripted. The difference is that this legal obligation is realized only after the government has proclaimed the state of danger or declares war. This selection, namely the activities of recruiting boards, must be prepared well ahead, in time of peace, in cooperation with municipal authorities, state and regional administration. The author also deals with ?extra service?, which might come into existence in case we are short of conscripts.

The recent public poll "Transatlantic Trends" indicates descending popularity of NATO among new member nations. The author (among others, the former deputy to the Slovakian National Assembly and the Council of Europe) calls upon discussion on this topic. He reminds that the primary purpose of the so-called Visegrad Group (V4-the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia) was to join the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. He offers his views on such a diverse and stimulating array of Euro-Atlantic defence and security related issues, related to the building of new European security architecture. We must bear in mind that no one can expect any single nation, even including the only remaining world superpower, to address all the diverse and transnational risks of the 21st century alone. Therefore, the EU/ V4 need to keep ties with NATO as NATO links US global power to the regional capabilities of the European allies.

The security is not very often mentioned in direct relation to the quality of life and sustainable development. The author introduces the security as their substantial element; he would like to offer an interesting approach towards examining mutual ties between both concepts. In fact, it is not a new idea; common knowledge that peace is more comfortable for life and culture, for economic development, is certainly older than quality of life concept. But, after an easygoing attitude to international background in the 90's, today we again pay our attention to the security problems, even in a wider spectrum, in varied contexts: from changes in world's climate, to differences between rich North and poor South, over international terrorism, efforts for integrated European position towards Common Foreign and Security Policy, NATO, security policy of the Czech Republic, till the individual feelings of safety.

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).

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.

The return of Russia as a power that begins again to partake in political agenda of present-day world raises the necessity to reflect its inner developments in the background of its recent history. There are six key factors that substantionally influence the position of Russia in the world: large sources of raw materials (pipelines); outstanding military capacities (the world's second nuclear potential); high level of general education; wide scientific and research base; permanent membership in UN Security Council and in the Group of Eight (G-8); deciding influence in the near neighbourhood. The study comes to the conclusion that Russia-in the horizon of 2020-will belong among world's leading actors, together with the US, the EU, China, and Islamic world. Russia will be able to of enforce its foreign and security goals, both in post-Soviet areas and in key regions in Europe, Asia and in the Great Near East. As such, it will probably get into conflict with the US. The priority tasks of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation will rest on maintaining nuclear parity with the US and building capacities for asymmetrical operations.

The world is full of unsolvable problems. Every key problem has turned now into multinational one; in fact, this can be handled only if it becomes a transnational problem. Security development is multifaceted process tied with the whole globe. The author recapitulates several models or paradigms that influenced a lot our global strategical thinking. The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and Its Geostrategic Imperatives by Zbigniew Brzezinski; The Choice: The Global Domination or Global Leadership of by the same author; The Clash of Civilizations by Samuel P. Huntington; Avin Toffler's The Third Wave; Kauffman's Fourth Law: Prolegomenon to General Biology (Investigations); Order Out of Chaos by I. Prigogine and I. Stengers. Dr. Volner says that the contemporary humankind has its last chance to push such a solution that might lead us out the world of dangers and threats to start building up a balanced and lasting security, but he warns against waging "small preventive wars", as the only way to safeguard the peace.

The author follows the mainstream economics, i.e. leading economics of defence policy, ranging from economics of defence in the nuclear age, via economics of Iraq conflict, to current fight against terrorism. New paradigm must be drawn, taking into account source management, the distribution of economics weight of individual national economies of all countries participating in the fight against global terrorism.

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.

The primary aim of the method Hazard & Impact Index (H&I Index) is to enable the commander to evaluate possible negative impacts of military exercise on environment, and quickly and in an operative way interpret whether intended military activities can be a threat to the conditions or surroundings, in which the units are employed. The authors propose several tables for the comparison of environmental groups (soils, forests, climates) with forces movements. The method still undergoes the development. The evaluated numbers are set only for a mechanized company of the Army of the Czech Republic in our local surrounding. But in the near future the authors predict its extension to all organic units of NATO stationed in European continent. The article is a sequel to the article by the same authors in Vojenské rozhledy, No 1 /2006.