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The paper deals with cyber security, cyber defence and operations in cyber space. It follows earlier performed analysis of cyber defence tasks and proposes distribution of competencies among key players. The required capabilities are derived from tasks determined by legislation, NATO and EU commitments and earlier developed strategic and operational scenarios. Comparing required capabilities and an actual state, a solution harmonizing defence in cyber space with defence of the Czech Republic and ensuring the cyber space defence and integration cyber capabilities into common operations conducting is proposed.

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.

The NATO common funding has already been used to finance common needs of the Alliance for 65 years and has contributed substantially to its readiness, cohesion and solidarity. A number of reform measures have been approved, and in most cases already implemented, over the period of last several years with the aim of more effective, economical, efficient a transparent use of NATO common funds and the introduction of modern financial management practices. NATO common funding is therefore a live and well-functioning system. Nevertheless, there is still a room for further improvements. The aim of this article is to describe the role of NATO common funding, its basic parameters and tools, its development in the past, and current and future challenges.

The article deals with the general considerations on the relationship between Public and Private Law and on the relationship of the Professional Soldiers Act (Act no. 221/1999 Coll., on Professional Soldiers) to other legal regulations. The contribution also defines and interprets certain terms (family, household/shared household, close person, child, spouse/partner) at which demonstrates the combination of both legislative branches. It attempts to demonstrate that the laws so called armed legislation, particularly the Professional Soldiers Act is not a world closed on itself, but rather an area that is a part of the unified legal system linked to a number of laws, including Private Law (especially to the CivilCode and Labour Code).

The aim of the paper is description and analysis of the transformation of the concept of hybrid war. The Russian intervention in Ukraine in 2014 meant principal re-definition of the concept which is reflected in the contemporary views on the hybrid wars and hybrid threats. The concept of hybrid war had been questioned in the past already as his validity and the efforts to be applied on the past conflicts deformed its innovative content. One could argue, that adding new dimensions and topic such as economic factors, ideological activity etc. brings risk of concept´s expansion which goes far behind of the framework of the phenomenon of the war and the use of armed forces in the armed conflicts. The author draws attention to the fact that the definition of hybrid war tends to be subordinate to the current needs, which in turn only hinders their explanation potential.

Participation of experts form NATO member and partner countries in security situation development trends together with related military implications is meanwhile the newest mean of member states engagement onto NATO Defence Planning. In one hand this possibility is a way to gain findings from national experts and in other hand an opportunity enabling countries to enlarge knowledge and experience of national participants in order to development of similar activities at national level. Moreover there is an opportunity to present activities of nations´ institutions working in the similar field as well as national findings linked to security trends and defence planning. The author concludes that the Czech Republic has not yet formulated its own defence planning process, and suggests the possible effects of this condition

This article discusses the issues of the Czech military diplomacy carried out by military, air, naval or defence attachés accredited in foreign countries in order to uphold the national security and defence interests. The main emphasis of this article is put on the evaluation of current state and legal bases of military diplomacy of the Czech Republic. The article aims to identify and analyse the challenges (1) the Czech diplomacy is currently faced with and to propose viable solutions (2) which could possibly contribute to better coordination and effectiveness of the Czech military diplomacy.

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 deals with the justification for the incorporation of the management of the arms trade and trade in military material into military diplomacy. This is defined as a set of diplomatic activities executed by the representatives of a defence department, primarily focused on implementing the military and security interests of the state. The analysis results in the statement that arms trade management is applicable to the scope of military diplomacy, especially as military and security interests are typically pursued by the state in this type of diplomatic activity. The study also uncovers the relevance of the engagement of military diplomats as a special category of diplomatic representatives of the state in the field

In the first part of the article was described terminology, main features and phases of Russian engagement in the conflict. It was pronounced that Russian engagement in the conflict is possible to designate it as military operation. The second article deals with other aspects of the conflict focused on indication of the Russian forces in operation, its unmasking signs and available operational experiences. The ending of the article deals with future possibilities of Russian engagement in region of the post-soviet states and political-military aspects of Russian foreign policy in extensive connection.

The article deals with economical aspects of operation of the military vehicles designated for the transport of persons in the competence of the defence department. In the beginning of the article basic concepts are defined, types of vehicles, and current structure of fleet of the sector. In addition, all passenger vehicles and buses exceeds the national average age in 2015. A more detailed analysis showed that the MoD makes the procurement of new vehicles in cost-effective way, and the structure of these purchases began to predominate significantly cars with diesel engines in the last ten years. However, the lack of monitoring of the total costs of operating vehicle use all cars unevenly, and fleet renewal is realized in low volumes. Although the data in the article are reported to and including 2015, evaluated the development and evolution of this trend persists until today.

Review:Jan Ludvík: Nuclear Asymetry and Deterrence. Theory, policy and history. Routledge, 2016.ISBN: 978-1-138-69619-8(hbk). ISSN: 978-1-315-52517-4 (ebk).

The objective of this article is to answer the question to which extent a respective concentration on Alliance approaches is really indispensable. A substance of the answer is to be found in the outcomes of analysis made on defence planning processes of NATO nations and EU member states. This analysis indicates to which extent national planning processes correlate with principles of NDPP and EU capability development. The analysis outcomes point out a significant diversity of approaches to national defence planning processes, the fact which stems from different interests of their national security and defence policies and, at the same time, the outcomes substantiate that the centre of gravity of national approaches does not lean on implementing principles of NDPP but on achieving outputs of the NDPP.

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.

This article aims to reflect a digression into the history of selected strategic documents, which processed the Ministry of Defence or was in the processing involved - in connection to the planning of acquisitions. The ambition of the article is not a comprehensive evaluation process, but only the selected aspects. After many years of decreasing Czech defence budget, is here the opposite situation. In connection with the new situation it is necessary to rethink the current approach to this topic; to ensure maximal security of the Czech Republic and in a figurative sense NATO and the European Union also. The fact, that the Czech strategy document was among the best in the EU, does not mean that defence spending is automatically efficient.

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 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.

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 article deals with some aspects of military art in connection with the forthcoming Doctrine of the Army of the Czech Republic. Its aim is to contribute to discussion on the issue of operational art and highlight the major benefits in military terminology. The author describes some specific doctrinal terms and briefly suggests their possible application during the planning and conduct of military operations.

The article is freely connected with the article United Nation Military Observer published in this Military Revue No 3, 2013, where the role of UN military observer was specified, i.e. as a member of an international peace support operation and military peace engagement. This following article mainly deals with UN military observer training procedures and concentrates on the classification of this training category. The lager part of the article is focused on military observers´ general preparation and its subjects and contents. In respective chapters, there are individual items of this training and their implementation explained, partly in the ACR. Finally, the author opens the question of chances to implement some neglected types of military observer's schooling, specific mission training, in-place training, and refresh training.

The article follows the leading theme of the Czech Military Review No. 2/2013 dealing with the application White Paper on Defence 2011. Both authors are members of the Lifelong Learning Department, Defence University, Brno. Backed by long experiences in military professional education and training, they present their views on advantages and disadvantages of the current model of officers' professional preparation, particularly senior officers. The authors' aim is to arouse a constructive debate about the changes in the current model of senior officers' career education. Their views are based upon history examples and models of some selected NATO nations.

This article deals with the involvement of military members of the Czech Army within peacekeeping operations as military observers. It discusses the core of the command and control of peacekeeping operations under the heading of the United Nations. It is focused on the role of military observers and the peculiarities of their tasks, based on the historical development. The special attention is dedicated to selection criteria and requirements for the selection of military observers. The candidates have to be flexible persons with comprehensive educational background. In the conclusion, the author opens the possibility to continue with the theme of military observers by means of a subsequent article based on personal experiences.

In 2007 and 2010, this Czech Military Review Vojenské rozhledy published several articles, discussing analytical thinking and analytical methodologies in the field of military intelligence. The authors among others mentioned the methodology ACH, Analysis of Competing Hypotheses. The methodology is not suitable only for intelligence, but it can be used further for solving a variety of military decision-making problems. The article in its first part describes ACH philosophy, including some academic considerations both by supporters and critics to this methodology. The second part demonstrates an example of its implementation and usage during support other problems tied with decision-making in defence planning process. The method is simple to explain, but difficult to introduce to real practice. The article explains both the theory and modifications of ACH and underlines some pitfalls connected with putting methodology into practice.

The basic orientation in the field of military art demands at least elementary knowledge of military history and understanding to military strategy influence on the art of war. The questions tied to understanding military strategy and its influence on the preparation and conducting military operations are part of study programmes of all life education at the Defence University. The purpose of this article, dedicated to military strategy problems, is deeper understanding to its basic connections, understanding a direction the strategy took in a designated period and its development. I ought to explain in short its role and attitude towards the nature of military operations.

The purpose of this article is to inform on elements of military deception in NATO armies and overarching principles that make military deception successful. Deception Planning is an iterative process that should be considered as an inextricable part of the operational planning. The knowledge in the field of military deception in the Czech military is low; no operational deception plan has been prepared for foreign operations or any military exercise. Deception is widely appreciated as a powerful instrument of military operations, yet it is surprisingly neglected by both the Czech Army and Military Educational System. The author tries to encourage officers and members of higher staffs to study this subject.

In the middle of Obama's first presidency, several waves of criticism turned up. According to some analysts, Barrack Obama's first presidency introduces the beginning of new world's era, the so-called "post-ethnical society". The latest discussions prove that the United States have been no longer the only world's superpower, they will remain in the position of world's leader, but still aregoing to substantionally influence global arrangement. Unsuccessful and protracted wars, reflecting serious economic depression with successive debts, effect military budget cuts, even though the American Armed forces are still powerful, potent and mighty power, all around the world, influencing word's events as a stabilising force. The study depicts political and security layout against American domestic political background.

The article brings results of the analysis of 14 national documents and 14 Czech Ministry of Defence internal documents. Document analysis showed the lack of traceability and verifiability of the methods, and that the methods of strategic analysis were usually used incorrectly, or incompletely. A proposal that can improve the situation is following: creation of a repository of processed strategic information, and the establishment of a specialized department, which will deal with the processing of strategic information and data, and will also create conditions for the creation of institutional knowledge. Another part of the proposed solution is also the inclusion of the topic of aggregating and processing complex analyses into the education system for all the staff presumed in participation in the strategic planning.