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The following thesis focuses on the issues regarding deployment of medical forces within the shifting operational environment. It analyzes its development stages and considers their meaning and influence on current and forecasted developments of military health capabilities in the long run. The authors' fundamental research question is to be whether the changes to the operational environment's dynamics and scope will substantiate as the defining factors for ensuring interoperability with Alliance partners, for the purposes of developing new type of medical capabilities needed. Moreover, the importance of a rarely emphasized role of operational art in military medicine is discussed. Such tool seems to be a key element for the harmonization of strategic objectives with long-term tactical activities.

Research into the historiography of the use of Weapons of Mass Destruction involves an excursion of the study of recent problems of Chemical Corps in the literature. Four basic periods were identified in the development of the theory of Chemical Corps and the concept of the use of Weapons of Mass Destruction. 1. The First World War and the foundation of Czechoslovakia as a period of changes in the principles of military leadership due to the existence of chemical weapons. 2. The period after the end of World War II, reflection on threats in the form of the development of Chemical Corps, the take-over of Soviet doctrine and military research objectives. 3. 1990s as a period characterized by an accent on the Gulf War, proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction and the introduction of new technical means of Chemical Corps. 4. Beginning of the 21st century and the threat of ultra-terrorism, the development of specialized capabilities of Chemical, Biological, Radiological, and Nuclear Defence, birth of the 9th Chemical Protection Company of immediate response and literary dominance of international security issues, which outweigh force protection problems in operations. The researched articles illustrate the originality of scientific thinking and the social contribution of scientific literature to the defense sector.

The article is focusing on challenges connected with execution of the Czech Army military operations in tropical rainforest under umbrella of international organization. The military engagements in the tropical climate depends on unit general characterization and necessary unit competency insufficiently specified in the Czech Army Catalogue of Capabilities. The Czech Army Catalogue of Capabilities standardizes training methods, training cost, and required training area and required training equipment and material. Based on experience gained from the training of the Czech military personnel in Jungle Training Centre in French Guyana, we can assess that to attain required skills for jungle operational environment acquires a few weeks. The international organizations are capable to provide necessary training for jungle operational environment in order to reach required level of skills and competencies before operation execution.

The article deals with the system of joint doctrine development in the Czech Armed Forces (CAF) focused on the operational level of command and control, including the implementation of the NATO doctrines into national conditions. Among others, it was found that the structure and content of the Czech doctrines are not systematically set. Allied doctrines are introduced either by rewriting them into the Czech version or by introducing them in the full English version. In both cases, it might cause inconsistency in military terminology. The Coordinating Committee as the only supervisory body does not have the authority to streamline the process of producing military publications. The most important paper recommendations include alignment of the Czech doctrinal framework with the NATO architecture, adoption of Allied doctrines in the English version including the national specifics, or redistribution of competencies within the processing group. Notwithstanding, the above-mentioned proposals, which indicated high impact, require crucial steps to be taken to implement them.

The article is based on a study carried out as part of the Long-Term Organizational Development Plan project by the Center for Security and Military-Strategic Studies of the University of Defense entitled "Armed Conflict". As part of the study, the issue of strategic surprise was analyzed and assessed, the aim of which was to find causal mechanisms and connections between the security of state defense and the phenomenon of surprise in the conditions of the 21st century. The article deals with the issue of surprise and its impact on state defense security. It describes strategic surprise as a principled aspect with implications and impacts on state defense. It examines the issue of surprise as a principle of military art in the context of contemporary strategic thinking.

The article describes the basic foundations and significance of the manipulative technique called Deepfake, which in the environment of technological and informational expansion is also becoming a widely used tool for spreading propaganda. This advanced manipulation complements a wider spectrum of forms of disinformation and is increasingly being used as a means of conducting information operations, often as part of wider hybrid warfare. Effectively combating this kind of manipulation places high demands on consumers of information, both on the part of the detection tools used and on the part of the cognitive human approach based on critical thinking. The expansion and sophistication of similar manipulative techniques will continue, in connection with the development of modern technologies and the interconnectedness of the information environment. Although the Deepfake technique is not only associated with security-military aspects, its influence on information operations and hybrid warfare cannot be neglected.

The article deals with the basic characteristics and tactical-technical requirements for the tactical unmanned aerial system (TUAS), which is planned to be implemented in the Czech Armed Forces in the upcoming years. Based on the results of the comparison of the Czech Armed Forces requirements with the parameters corresponding to the TUAS, the Hermes 900 and Heron systems of Israeli production appear to be the most suitable variants. Both aircrafts can represent a comprehensive solution in this area. They both have a long tradition of production, research and development and of course, they both meet the requirements for TUAS within NATO and the European traffic operations accreditation. However, the decisive selection parameter, apart from security risks and compatibility, is also the purchase price. The main goal of the article is to bring a view of the issue from a broader context and to find a possible way-out together with an evaluation of the advantages and disadvantages of each of the proposed variants.

The guarantee of national defense and the fulfillment of commitments to Allies is highly dependent on its financial source security. The economic recession, which began in 2008 in the USA, negatively affected public budgets. This recession was one of the causes of the reduction of planned defense spendings in the Czech Republic. This reduction caused the postponement of acquisitions, which were to be implemented both with regard to commitments to coalition partners and with regard to maintaining their own defense capabilities. Nowadays, current internal debt is still increasing due to neglecting inflation of military equipment, which is higher than inflation of ordinary goods. Currently, the defense ability is also affected by the pandemic of Covid-19, which caused a slowdown in GDP growth and public spending growth. For this reason, it has been several times postponed the commitment to achieve a rate of 2% of military expenditure of GDP by 2024 and the current plan to achieve it in 2027 is also endangered.

The article deals with some military consequences of the departure of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland from the European Union (Brexit). To assess the potential impacts on defence and security of EU, a structured approach involving several methods was used in the analysis, which combines a search of professional publications, factors sensitivity analysis and testing of hypotheses. Based on the analysis, it was evaluated that the departure of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland from the structures of the European Union will take place without significant impact in the military field and does not pose an immediate threat to the security and defence of EU member states. Nevertheless, in connection with Brexit, there is still a certain risk of negative impacts in this area.

This paper deals with the issue of logistics planning – one of the seven planning domains of defence planning in the Ministry of Defence Department of the Slovak Republic. In the framework of the descriptive research problem, the author was looking for an answer to the question: How is logistics planned in the defence planning system at the departmental level? The article contains the results of theoretical and empirical research carried out on the given issue. The author explains the main theoretical background of the research issue, describesin more detail the methodology of logistics planning in the conditions of the department as well as current knowledge and experience from practice, points out the most significant problems in the field and proposes their possible solutions.

The article focuses on the concept of crowdsourcing in the social networking environment as a new phenomenon involving civilians in the intelligence process, enabling the use of their intelligence potential during armed conflict. Crowdsourcing of the civilian population is introduced by the example of NATO intervention during the first civil war in Libya. The article presents its use during the intelligence process at the strategic-operational level of command and control of the armed forces. It establishes its possible definition as a collection method of the intelligence process, and as a collection method which is disjunctively separable from similar intelligence collection methods.

The article deals with the consequences of changes in society and the army after the "Velvet Revolution" in 1989 for teaching social sciences at military schools. The changes are illustrated by the example of the Military University of the Ground Forces in Vyškov, which trained most of the officers for the ground troops. The first part of the article shows the use of social science teaching at military schools to ideologically indoctrinate students in favour of the ruling Communist Party of Czechoslovakia before November 1989. The next part of the article deals with the reflection of changes in society and in the army after the abolition of the article on the leading role of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia in the Constitution in the system of teaching social sciences, in their content and scope. The content of the article also shows individual milestones in the process of changes in the teaching of social sciences on the way from their use for communist indoctrination to the formation of democratic army officers.

The article discusses the current approach of the Czech Republic to the phenomenon of hybrid threats and analyses the fundamental shortcomings that determine the effective management of these threats. As part of a comprehensive approach, the text is supplemented by the current view of the European Union and NATO on addressing the issue of hybrid action by hostile actors. A summary comparison of the approaches of the Czech Republic, the European Union and NATO points to the need for mutual institutional synergy among these entities. Although the current approaches of the mentioned subjects are relatively sufficiently doctrinally anchored, the absence of a complex and especially practically functioning apparatus and specific operational tools that would be able to face a wide range of hybrid threats persists.

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.

The aim of this study was to create an overview of the Czech Armed Forces' development in approach to environmental protection from 1989 to 2022. Using the methods of analysis, synthesis and comparison of the Czech, EU´s and NATO´s environmental legislation, we created a comprehensive and previously unpublished overview of environmental protection within the Czech Armed Forces. Found outputs were set into illustrations depicting the activities in the environmental field with internal links between civil legislation, EU's requirements, and NATO's policy in chronological order. We conclude that the year 2000 represents a key milestone from which the approach to environmental protection have stagnated. Among the reasons for the stagnation, we identify commanders' concerns about "green approach" to troop training and the lack environmental education within defence department.

The text is dedicated to the analysis of the legal regulation of military wills in the new Civil Code (Law No. 89/2012 Coll.). It places it in a historical legal context. However, priority attention is paid to a detailed analysis of the current legal regulation and potential issues that this regulation brings. It also briefly mentions other options for last dispositions that a soldier could use. The legal regulation of military wills in the Civil Code can be characterized as very well conceived, reflecting the reality of foreign missions. The fact that it takes the form of a public document is also significant if the relevant requirements are met. However, the question is how the application practice of the courts will approach the adjustment.

The article deals with the preparation of the Active Reserve of Czech Armed Forces, territorial forces in detail. It compares them to the equivalent of the active reserves of the Polish army, namely the Territorial Defense troops. A comparison of the development and preparation of these forces points to the necessity of solving or updating the system of calling up reserves of the Czech Armed Forces, their training, arming and equipping.

The article analyses the process of the NATO enlargement after 1990. It starts by a detailed analysis of the secret negotiations which have been started just after the end of the Cold War. In the light of the institutional liberalism, the NATO enlargement is a positive process which satisfied especially new member states. But in the light of the American neorealism, this process resulted into profound changes in the balance of the security threats and into a large militarisation and tension at the new Eastern frontier of NATO in a direct neighbourhood with the Russia. New military units with the modern arms systems are deployed over there and we are witnessing a growing number of dangerous military incidents. As a result, the contemporary situation needs new political negotiations between two competitors and a shift from the contemporary negative Peace towards the positive Peace.

This study provides a summary overview of the creation and the activities of the international security architecture in the form of their two main pillars, i.e. the United Nations and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization in the Near and Middle East region. Within the framework of international security relations, this is a very unstable and conflictual region, where this instability has lasted practically since the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948. The global UN, its overall activity and importance, especially humanitarian and peace-building activities not only for the Near and Middle East region, is very beneficial, through out the Cold War period up to the present day. As a security organization, NATO is among the most important global actors influencing current international security relations. Through their activities, both of these organizations represent a essential means of ensuring world peace and security.

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, The Czech Republic. Article assesses the development of Czech Defence policy in 2017 and first half of 2018. Authors analyse key change drivers in external environment (security threats, EU strategic autonomy, transatlantic link). In second step authors evaluate measures taken in political, military, administrative, economical and societal domain in response to key change drivers and highlight related risks to effective defence policy formulation and implementation.

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 personality of the seventh Czechoslovak president, army general Ludvík Svoboda, is well known to older generations, younger generations are aware of him because of the controversies of recent times. Although there are many biographies of Svoboda, they are mostly determined by the time of their creation and the effort to avoid naming the problems of the time.

Laser weapons have long been the subject of debate. The article discusses the potential adoption of laser weapons by infantry units and the future of small firearms. The text analyses these weapons in selected categories that subsequently support the evaluations and the conclusion. If miniaturisation is successfully managed, the comparison reveals an interesting paradox. While laser weapons and firearms do not rival each other as distinct functionalities, given the right conditions, they can actually complement each other and compensate for any disadvantages within their respective categories. Today's complex battlefield is placing ever greater demands on small arms, pushing conventional weapon mechanisms - combined with ammunition that guarantees accuracy and lower recoil, albeit at the expense of penetration - towards the limits of further possible advancement in technology. Improved passive individual protection restricts the wounding potential of pistol ammunition, reducing it to below 150 m for rifle cartridges, while guided ammunition tends to be prohibitively expensive. Under the right conditions, laser weapons could compensate for any of these drawbacks.

The Bucha massacre raises the question of whether the Russian army predisposes its soldiers to unlawful violence against civilians. This article assumes that regardless of superior orders, perpetrators of violence must overcome the psychological barriers developed during socialisation. The psychological mechanism of "moral disengagement" allows soldiers to kill in combat and act violently on civilians. The duty of the armed forces is not only to prepare soldiers to fight and kill but also to prevent illegal violence. The case of the Russian army demonstrates how formal activities to prevent moral disengagement and violations of the International Humanitarian Law (IHL) face insurmountable obstacles in the form of institutional culture and insufficient human capital.

This article deals with one of the most explosive areas of the world today, which is the Near and Middle East (NMEA) and especially the territory of historical Palestine, where the Israeli-Palestinian conflict (IPC) has been going on for a long time. The text deals primarily with historical and military factors and is written as a historical explanatory analysis. It focuses on the most significant historical events and explains the ways of functioning and the consequences of the processes that have been taking place there for a long time.

The article deals with the use of military police in combat operations during dominance phase.Itdescribes the place androleofmilitarypoliceas combat support units, analyzes experience from previous and ongoing operations and specifies the possible activities of military police during this phase. In conclusion it gives recommendations for the development of capabilities in terms of the activities performed and possible changes in organizational structures. The content of the article is based on thesis prepared by the participant of the 27th General Staff Course at the University of Defence.

The aim of the article is to make the general public acquainted with a new view of the state service issue and to offer the author´s observations and conclusions relating to state service issues. The article briefly explains the public service and defines the relationship between the public service and the state service. It describes the organization of the state service and the entities of service relationships in the Czech Republic. It deals with the employment relationship - its origin, non acceptance for employment relationship and its termination. It presents important milestones of the employment relationship, such as an oath of service, a clerical exam and a service evaluation. It characterizes the state service within the Ministry of Defence, clarifies the role and responsibilities of the Secretary of State within the Ministry of Defence, state employees and other categories of the staff in the service office.

The article deals with providing situational awareness in operations at the operational level of command in the context of the information environment, the current nature of which significantly affects the execution of this capability. It examines the influence of three selected aspects - information overload, the expansion of advanced information technology and the growing importance of the cyber domain - on generating, maintaining and sharing situational awareness in planning and conduct of operations. It identifies and characterizes the respective sub-capabilities within the information area, necessary for operational headquarters to effectively provide situational awareness, and outline possible ways to develop these capabilities in terms of internal processes, technical equipment and personnel.

The article is about the immigration in France and its consequences on the security field. It starts by the historical context and pays a big attention to the development during last two decades. It analyses the process of the islamisation on the cultural, social, security, and political levels. It continues by the French debate which reflects the clash of two contrasting approaches: political correctness vs. critical attitudes. The French experts dispute about two key subjects: the numbers of the immigrants and, namely, the correlations between the immigration and the growing numbers and brutality of the terrorist attacks (the so - called amalgam). The last part analyses the place and the role the immigrants in the French armed forces. This text offers an original periodisation of the phenomena of the immigration in France since the first post WW II years until today. It examines not only its quantitative aspects, but also its qualitative changes.

This paper assesses the information war in Ukraine in the context of the military strategy. An influence of the information operation (disinformation and deception) presents the strategic tool. The author pragmatically analyses the information war from the military art perspectives and as a part of the strategy used for support of the combat operations. He identifies phases of the information war in the context of the war. The author expects and confirms the opinion that the information war is led by both external actors (the USA and the Russian Federation). Their top representatives are involving in the information war because they support their own interests. This paper has been written as a neo-realist case study. The balance of power concept is in accordance with the used theory, as well as with the key interests of the external actors.