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Even though we have several concept documents: Security Strategy, Defence Policy, our armed forces are fragmentized by doubtful laws into autonomous sections, Army of the Czech Republic, Castle Guard, Military Office of the President, Military Intelligence. We lack a binding political assignment on defence policy. The Defence White Book was a serious attempt to introduce this problem among members of government, parliament. But it was ineffectual. The officials did not respond, contented with emergency arrangements. Alarms bell. Supposing the politicians are not involved in defence policy, we should lose our Alliance credibility, later on even Alliance collective security.

Use of child soldiers by rebel armed forces has been growing in recent years. In comparison to preceding conflicts, main reasons for their use have changed significantly - at the present time, children have become highly efficient psychological weapon in battles against the military from developed countries. This may have momentous consequences not only for the given children but also for professional soldiers. Fighting against child soldiers can indisputably affect the soldiers' capability to discharge their duties. Furthermore, they have to cope with many individual moral dilemmas. The article will look into potential moral aspects regarding confrontation between child soldiers and members of professional armed forces. In the following section, training of professional soldiers and preparation of military mission will be explored. Subsequently, weaknesses which are crucial to forestall in the future will be outlined.

This study deals with selected aspects of the conflict in Eastern Ukraine in Luhansk and Donetsk region in period of April 2014 - to February 2015. Study is divided in two subsequent articles. The first article consists of introduction, theoretic-methodological part, analytical part and short summary, which defines main features of Russians engagement in the conflict. Theoretic-methodological part deals with terminological, theoretical and methodological background of analysis, including generally approach of Russian federation to security policy. Analytical part is divided in to the two partial chapters. The first deals with main Russian objective in the conflict. The second deals with the phases of Russian engagement.

Pacifism, opposition to war and other violence, is both organized political movement and individual ideology. Pacifism varies from a form that is absolute and doctrinal to a relative and more practical form. Absolute pacifists are against all wars and against violence in any form whatsoever; relative pacifists are selective of the wars and violence they oppose. Most absolute pacifists stress the immorality of the taking of one person's life by another person. The philosophy of pacifism has been propounded throughout history on grounds of morality, divine will, or economic and social utility. The probable impact of pacifist theories on the Armed Forces is discussed in this article, as service in our forces is set by the law and inner normative acts of the Ministry of Defence.

The text is reaction to disputation between Lubos Dobrovsky and Jan Eichler in Vojenské rozhledy magazine, which was dealing with limits and inappropriate of neoliberal approach to analysis of military-security situation in post-soviet space from Czech point of view. Text tries to point out, that neorealistic approach, which focuses on material source of power, inevitably deals with ideas as well. Therefore, Ted Hopf´s approach, whcih combines attention to material power and ideas, is introduced.

The paper focuses on issues related to possibilities of use of mine delivery systems within the Czech Armed Forces. Its content is aimed on technical and tactical capabilities of the mine launcher MV-3 during the placement of anti-tank minefields according to the desired effect on the enemy. On the basis of indicative calculations this paper presents limited possibilities and abilities of the Czech Armed Forces Corps of Engineers within the area of remotely placement mine fields and the use of the mine launcher MV-3, which is currently the only special established means for fulfilling this task. This fact has a significant impact on tactical deployment of countermobility engineer units during carrying out their missions.

Frozen conflict in Nagorno Karabakh has been representing a threat to the regional stability for the last two decades. Sudden escalation of violence in 2016, known as Four-Day War, spurred new discussions on factors influencing the territorial dispute between Armenia and Azerbaijan. While adversaries explain the conflict as a reaction to military provocations or as a rally round the flag effect, this article explains the dynamics of the conflict through the influence of the third party - Russia. Russia considers the Caucasus to be its sphere of the influence and therefor aims to spread its control through strengthening strategic ties with both Armenia and Azerbaijan in order to prevent the West from projecting its power in the region. Russia's role of the superpower has therefor a vast influence on the Nagorno Karabakh conflict development.

The article deals with ways to help soldiers with the integration into the labour market after leaving the military service. Its aim is to describe the current state of knowledge in conditions of the Czech defence department and methods of so called outplacement in selected European countries. Within the description of the current situation in the Czech Republic, the article focuses on the training of a professional soldier, retraining courses and other measures that are implemented. While processing the text, literature search, analysis of legislative and statistical documents and direct interviews with experts from the Ministry of Defence and other experts from foreign ministries and institutions of the defence department were applied. The article provides a summary of the pros and cons of preparation of soldier for a career in the civilian sector in the Czech Republic, and submits suggestions for improving the current situation.

Article deals with analysis and description of defence-industrial cooperation of V4 countries from the beginning of nineties of the 20th century up to 2016. The goal of this text is presentation of findings relating to achieved degree of cooperation, where besides realized cooperation (its outcomes are real products) and political aspects (as determining mechanism and framework of whole partnership) attention is also paid to the causes as a driving force of past and current state. In conclusion, author assesses the most problematic issues of defenceindustrial cooperation of V4 countries and also obstacles of their deeper EU involvement, which can be used as a more suitable framework for anchoring regional partnership in sector of defence industry. Author also outlines areas of potential future cooperation of Visegrad partners.

The issue of terrorism is becoming increasingly important on the level of social, economic, political and security. The threat of terrorism affects at the same time, societal and cultural events. Professional and academic discussion addresses the causes and possible consequences of this phenomenon. To understand the implications of terrorism, it is necessary to look at this issue from the perspective of terms of its financing. This review study aims to define the term financing of terrorism on the one hand, but also to identify possible sources of financing of terrorism, including the most used payment methods by terrorist organizations. This study also leads a discussion on the efforts and effectiveness of the various authorities in the fight for detecting terrorism, especially in relation to the detection of its financial flows. The study also defines the possible pitfalls in the fight against terrorism and detecting its sources of financing and attempts to outline possible alternatives while increasing success in this fight.

This text focuses on process of armament policy of the Armed Forces of Georgia and how it was influenced by country's effort to join NATO. Authors argue that Georgia's proclaimed pro-western ambitions should have also been reflected in the process of materiel procurement. Authors investigate the time period from 2003 to 2008 when growing military expenditures reached it's top. Text shows that only few major acquisitions in that period were focused on western military equipment and that Georgia's military acquisitions did not reflect countrys inclination towards west and NATO.

The paper focuses on the topic of social work in the Czech Armed Forces, its possibilities and specific implementation. Based on the broad definition of the objectives of social work in an international context reflects the current status of social work with military personnel in an Armed Forces in the past 25 years. On the basis of two different surveys among professional soldiers, realized by different methods and at different stages of development of a professional army support the idea, that soldiers feel the lack of social work in the long term, and in the specific areas of their lives, which are inevitably professionally determined.

The article is based on the positions of neo-realism, namely in the works by S. Walt and J. Mearsheimer. It characterizes the key actors of the war in Ukraine, which is a result of a long-term geopolitical competition between the USA and RF in the Black Sea region. The NATO enlargement in the area is classified as a non-coercive Expansion by Invitation (articulated by the elites of the former member states of the USSR and Warsaw Pact), which has provoked growing irritation of Russian political and military elites and the following hybrid war with dramatic international consequences. Last but not least, the article analyses military incidents and resulting security threats and challenges.

On the introduction, the article focuses on clarifying the place and role of counterinsurgency in current military operations. It also deals with the principles of counterinsurgency and their doctrinal comparison within some advanced armies and the NATO. The aim is to highlight some findings related to principles that should be changed,added in doctrine and incorporated into the training of the ACR troops. The result of the analysis and comparison of individual principles with own experience of the author from the mission in Afghanistan are recommendations given for the troop training in the theatre. The implementation of the proposed measures in preparation of the Czech Army units may improve the effectivenessof counterinsurgency in military operations.

The aim of the article is to present a synthesis of findings from both analyses and their application while conceiving a proposal of methodology for military capability assessment of Armed Forces of the Czech Republic. The proposed approach to capability assessment stems from principles of the NATO´s J-DARTS (Joint Defence Planning Analysis and Requirements Tool Set) and EU´s SAEP (Scrutinising, Assessing, Evaluating and Prioritising Process) when the main attention was focused on the phase of matching current capabilities of force units against capability requirements, follow-on identification of shortfalls and their prioritisation. The degree of priority should primarily qualify the level of operational risk stemming from potential engagement of force units in an operation.

The paper deals with the issue of the purpose, creation and practical use of scenarios during operational concepts development. The scenar- ios reflect the fundamental characteristics of the environment in which the military missions will be conducted in the next 15-20 years. The paper defines the type of scenarios useful for creation of operational concepts and requirements that must be met for a successful process of scenarios development. Further, it describes the process of scenarios development, the main risks associated with this process while suggesting the possibility of reducing the rate of those risks.

The paper deals with the principle of legality during putting in practice of Military police support to allied armed forces in the Host nation Support operation on the Czech Republic territory. Security of sending nation armed forces weaknesses have been identified on the base of analysis of the issue current state supplemented by the legal framework assessment. Suggestions, for expert discussion of Military police authority change, are in the last chapter.

This article focuses on answering the question to what extent did the German foreign and security policy change, based on the ISAF mission in Afghanistan, especially when it comes to military deployment abroad. The author identifies and analyses the consequences associated with the German experience in Afghanistan and their influence on the current and future deployment of German armed forces abroad. The attention is given to the German strategic culture of "civilian power" and the question, if Germany still fulfills the attributes connected with this theoretical concept. The author verifies this assumption by means of the role theory concept, which helps to understand the behavior of Germany on the international level.

The text deals with current and future trends in the development and application of robotic systems suitable for military engineering. The first chapter deals with contemporary requirements for application of robotics into military engineering and furthermore it assesses current state of application of engineer robotic systems into military practice. The second chapter is dedicated to future possibilities of application of robotic systems into military engineering and mentions trends in development of robotic technologies with an emphasis on engineer robotic systems. The chapter also aims at forecast of development and application of these systems into Czech army corps of engineers. The last part of the text summarizes identified discrepancies between current

The Directed energy weapons use highly focused energy to damage targets. These weapons use electromagnetic radiation, sound, or subatomic particles. This article aims mainly presentation of information on the current situation in the field of directed electromagnetic weapons that use pulsed electromagnetic field in the range of radio waves and microwaves band. These technologies are used for disruption or destruction of electronic and electrical circuits of the enemy equipment. This makes it possible to neutralize or completely destroy the operation of information, communication, management, control, firing and other electronic devices.

After several years of reducing of the Czech defence budget there is a reversal and the Czech MoD begins to manage the increased budget especially for Czech Armed Forces capability development. The Czech Armed Forces is for many years actively involved in the process sharing multi-national capabilities of NATO. Among the former activities such as Smart Defence and Connected Forces Initiative, is also initiative Framework Nations Concept. This article analyzes the overall framework of this initiative, direction and development of this concept.

In the shadow of the profound transformation of the security environment, the long rejected idea of a multi-speed Europe in defence is taking shape. What is the Czech Republic's stance in this context? Is it ready to adapt and make defence one of the government's priorities, or will it only passively observe the events around it and at some point tolerate another intervention or occupation of another power? The article outlines several practical recommendations to the Czech Republic in the area of military capabilities, armaments, defence research, defence industry and market, which could provide guidance in this process.

This paper depicts the position of the Czech President as the head of state and the commander-in-chief of the Czech Armed Forces, including his special relation to Defence Minister who actually runs defence department. The President is superior to all members of armed forces of the Czech Republic; the Chief of General Staff is superior to all members of the Army of the Czech Republic.The President formally and officially controls all the military organizations in a country. But we have no tradition of independent of armed deployment in war conflicts. Our forces operated always as a part of higher multinational coalitions, in joined combined groupings, operationally subordinated to friendly, but alien highest command.

The article deals with the problems of current "military engineering" in Czech Army, which arose during drawing up the "Doctrine for land forces operations". The content of this article consists mainly of three parts. The first one has to characterize some doctrine development aspects from the engineer's contributor point of view. Secondly, to adduce requirements for the content of a doctrine which are consequent to NATO main military engineering documents, e.g. MC 0560, AJP-3-12(A) and ATP-52(B). Thirdly, this level has to evoke resourceful discussions on topical military engineering within military community and to contribute to the mutual opinion consensus achievement.

The new ten-year defence strategy of the Czech Republic has been approved. The document stresses that despite the continuing recession, our state should not allow the military being weakened by further reduction of resources. This could worsen the quality of the military and weaken the Czech Republic's credibility in the international community. There is also the risk of the financial, organisational and personnel destabilisation of the Czech defence system that would bring about a loss of the quality of military personnel, a decayed prestige of the military service, an erosion of the state military capabilities. The new defence strategy is not a cure-all medicine. By its adoption the real