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The reform of the Czech armed forces is factually and timely tied with the transformation of NATO forces, both in the field of technology and that of doctrine. The covering principle of this transformation is the so-called EBAO concept, in the frame of which we define three main transformation objectives: forces must have operational superiority, they must be operationally effective, deployable, and sustainable. The effects-based approach to operations focuses on combining military and non-military actions to influence the overall behaviour and capabilities of other actors: national, trans-national, belligerent and benign, in an operational environment in order do create effects leading to the achievement of strategic objectives and a desired end-state. Its application focuses the planning, execution and assessment of operations. The cited EBAO handbook was followed by several documents (e.g. discussion papers), issued at the end of 2007 as a means to inform future doctrine reviews. Many of the concepts and documents should be validated, either through experimentation, or through specifically designed exercises.

The article is focused on the Czech military bases during mission abroad and introduces new term "Life Cycle of Military Base". Every system has its own successive stages through which it passes; concept that compares the cyclical nature of organizations, systems, is called life cycle. The Reach-Back concept divides lifetime of the military base into seven phases: Assignment (task, goals), Preparation, Proposal (draft), Designing, Building, Running and Cancelling. The definition and description of all phases of the Life Cycle of Military Bases is an important contribution to solving series of problems connected with designing, building, running and cancelling of military bases during mission abroad. Dividing into separate sections contributes to the well-mastered supervision of base, as it indicates factual structures of individual stages of daily routine of the base and thus it lowers the risks of neglecting some activities.

Abolishing military courts at the end of 1993 could evoke the idea that there is no such thing as military judicature in our country. In fact, the Defence Act sets that in time of military preparedness, higher and lower field tribunals and courts come into existence. But present legal norms do not know the legal term "state of military preparedness", only "mobilization". There are many other legal gaps, concerning e.g. declaration war, defining state of war, proclaiming martial law. There are not firmly set statutes of field military courts, their subordination, dependence of field judges and their assistants, or how shall we handle offences of our soldiers abroad, its connections with international laws and agreements. This state of affairs for quick remedy.

Military professional terminology is a special vocational vocabulary used within armed forces, usually only partially understood by outsiders. The author demonstrates several most notorious examples to draw attention of terminology specialists. They are special vocabularies of military and security affairs, such as human resources, integrated MoD, recruit, recruitment, air wing, air base, strategical/tactical levels, names of organizational military structures, battalion, company, regiment (in fact they differ from nation to nation) task force, defence planning and planning of defence, to name at least a few. In spite of several translated AAP publications, generally, those terms are used in a different way. The author calls for creating more cohesive terminology. He intentionally does not put his own proposals, he only appeals to leading military officials to enforce the unified and accurate military terminology. It is high time to solve this task, namely within the frame of a lifelong education of military personnel.

It is the title of homonymous publication by Jan Eichler from the Institute of Foreign Relations. The author depicts basic characteristics of main features of security and strategic culture of present world. He tries to answer the following three questions: What are historical and political factors of security /strategical culture of respective actors, what are main features of their doctrinal documents, and their impacts on the development of global international relations in the early 21st century? He deduces that the participation of the CR in military interventions in third world countries could generate a risk of terrorist's attacks against not only members of armed forces abroad, but also installations in our state territory.

He came from a problem region of Silesia, where three nationalities quarrelled each other: the Czechs, the Poles and the Germans. After Polish occupation of Silesia, he was expelled from the country by new Polish authorities as a "politically undesirable" person. He and his fiancée left their native land. In England he volunteered the Czechoslovak Army abroad. As a soft technician in 1941 he became an air mechanic and repaired navigational and control devices of badly damaged airplanes. By unhappy mischance, he was knocked down by a bus. He died at military air force hospital. After his death he was decorated by Czechoslovak War Cross 1939, Military Commemorative Medal with Great Britain Bar, and in 1991 he was posthumously promoted to the rank of air captain.

From research reports cited in this article, the period of six months seems to be suitable time for the deployment abroad. A soldier should not be redeployed for at least one year, following his previous mission. The majority of soldiers cope with deployments well and without any psychopathology. Most reported mental problems are alcohol misuse, followed by posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and by the depression. Alcohol seems be even the higher risk for soldiers less exposed to combat stressors (e.g. fire), but more to chronic stressors (boredom, isolation, helplessness) than PTSD for a soldier in action. Therefore pre-deployment training of our soldiers should be more devoted to mental health aspects, starting with alcohol overuse.

This paper deals with various forms of Islamist threats to the Czech Republic, with specific attention paid to military issues. It defines the basic terms and describes the role of the Czech Republic in Islamist strategies. Threats of terrorism and jihadism, extremism and riots, violation of women's rights, including the so-called "honour crimes", and internal clashes within the Muslim community are analyzed. Contemporary situation of the Czech Republic can be characterized mostly as "logistic area" to Islamism. Even thought there is not an eminent danger, the intensity of several Islamist threats could be higher in the future. The primary purpose of this article is to form a basic frame for identification of prospective terrorist attacks by means of extrapolation.

The overall purpose of this paper is to describe the way the Alliance and the also the Czech Army is going to apply the leverage of powers while conducting operations in the future. The article shows in details that the relative combat power analysis requires an assessment of factors either directly or indirectly affecting the potential outcome of the operation. In order to improve military knowledge and operational thinking within the Czech Army it is recommended to improve the quality of officers' military training and personnel preparation in accordance with Czech MoD White Paper on Defence. The views expressed in this assessment are those of the author and do not reflect the official policy or position of Alliance or the Czech Ministry of Defence.

One of most discussed themes in this field is also a critique of unfinished, non-stable structure of master documents, e.g. Security Strategy of the Czech Republic. They are often told to be obsolete. The latest document, the White Paper on Defence, Critical responses are not quite justified. There are a lot of good ideas, innovations. Many things have been done, many set tasks have been met at the level of Defence Ministry. Positive effects of results reached are obvious. They are summarized in the White Paper mentioned above. The only danger lies in arbitrary decisions by political management, including employing variable means of their implementation, wanton interpretation of leading defence principles, low respect to approved strategical decisions. We must name mentioned handicaps as a first step towards the real and true remedy.

In the past, the Common Funding played only marginal role in the NATO strategic decision-making. However, this situation changed significantly when the global economic crisis challenged the national public expenditures and NATO defence policy became a matter of serious reflections. NATO should balance its requirements with limited resources and adjust its future activities within shrinking budgets. NATO must make hard decisions and implement reforms in order to ensure its ability to fulfil its mission and priority tasks in the long run. The reconfiguration of Common Funding is an inherent part of this process. The aim of this article is to introduce Common Funding as a management-supporting tool of the international organisation under currently mounting resource constrains.

This article deals with selected security aspects of Israeli maritime border lines. It briefly depicts current organizational structure of the Israeli Navy. It gives an overview of equipment used to safeguard Israeli sovereignty from seaborne threats, including search and secure operations performed against anti-Israeli insurgent organizations and their trafficking lines. In connection to the Gaza Strip blockade, the article examines legitimacy of this controversial approach and its current international consequences. Last but not least, the article looks beyond the security extent of maritime borders and examines Israeli approach as a mean of spreading the national sovereignty over newly explored gas reserves in the eastern Mediterranean area.

Topical problems of insufficient military budget, limited means are a drive force for searching unoccupied financial means to saturate set goals and ensure their unbiased reallocation and rational exploitation. The necessary prerequisite is control implementation and managerial accounting. This ought to create primary predispositions for introducing managerial accounting system, which would be oriented not towards financial, and property operations, but towards effective economy. The article describes phenomena tied with an army unit, together with the position of its commander in the process of gradual implementation of integrated informational system of state treasury, which is most manifested in the field of planning, budgeting and accounting.

The purpose of this analysis is to trace contemporary position of recent war veterans, members of missions abroad after 1989 after they retired. Above it concentrates on their problem on home labour market, eventually on psychic disorders, negative after-effects or syndromes, possible assistance and support on the part of state, eventually of Czech Ministry of Defence. The article is divided into two parts. The first one analyses accessible statistical data concerning participants in foreign missions and at the same time collected data serve for drafting hypothesis tied with a research segment of this paper. The second part of this study evaluates results reached, based upon anonymous questionnaires completed by retired new war veterans in the period from December 4, 2009, till January 25, 2010

President Barack Obama came to power at a difficult time in America's history. Home and foreign policies are hard to manage, among others, as we are on the threshold of post-ethnic society, and in the war with terrorisms. Obama does not give up American leadership, but he is seeking to find the balance between security and liberty, between power and freedom in the world, broadly speaking. As the consequence, Mr. Rašek presumes emerging the new global security situation: the rise of multipolar world, divided into several new political spheres. This author's opinion is backed by comments by reputable world's political analysts. As far as Euro-Atlantic relations are concerned, or relations with Russia, there are excellent prospects, namely there is the progress with Russia on arms control-part of Obama's determination to put the world on a path toward nuclear disarmament. The author ascribes the drop in Obama's popularity to failed healthcare reform; outside the US, to the fact that Obama is not able to define clear goals and missions in Afghanistan.

This year, the Hlávka Economy Institute published a book "Professional Army in the Czech Republic: First Five Years", by Bohuslav Pernica. It is a study dealing with first five years in which the Czech Republic transformed its forces from a conscription army to all-volunteer one. The author sees the necessity to go professional in context of changed global surrounding after the end of Cold War. The subject is treated mainly from economy point of view. He pays attention to three important issues related to this transformation: recruitment /retention, training /education, and substandard soldier's pay, which is one of roots of low service competitiveness on civil labour market.

With regard to changing external and internal surroundings of MoD and the creation and transfer of IT knowledge, it is necessary in practice to implementimprovements in logistics database and functionality of the so-called Logistics Information System MoD, during the whole cycle of managing, i.e. in the in the areas of sequential management and continuous management functions, depicted in this article. The paper presents results gained from a survey about the knowledge of logistics study models, academic and science projects, in Logistics Department of University of Defence Brno. The purpose of the paper is to compare student's knowledge and ability to adapt new approaches and developments in IT technology, including their capability to contribute in science research projects.

The aim of this work is to explain readers the so-called sociomapping method that is among others used in Czech peacekeeping units employed abroad, e.g. in Kosovo, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Iraq or Afghanistan. Sociomapping came into being in 1994, when a young scientist Radovan Bahbouh came up with the idea of this special analytical-graphical method. The method reflects the description of human activities and ways in which we could (in the positive sense) affect human lives. With Sociomapping, we can even predict the most suitable staffing of the crew. Sociomapping is shown as proper instrument, which helps to determine the problem and most important areas to focus on.

This strategy has received substantial attention and triggered the discussion about the future of U.S. security policy and America's role in the world. The article argues that American strategy is often misunderstood, particularly in the Czech environment. Obama's defence strategy and its foundations must be explained through the lenses of the balance of threats developed by Stephen Walt. Washington is balancing what it perceives to be the greatest threat to American leadership in the world. Threats are presented by emerging power of People's China, the situation in Middle East. Europe is not less important; it is still an important American ally.

In our country, existing strategical documents related to security used to be compiled very carefully, but proved to be not very effective, as they did not fit to practical everyday security policy, they did not comply with day-to-day requirements. The only exception was the 1991 doctrine dealing with the creation of Integrated Rescue System and the implementation of professional armed forces. At present, there is a tendency to rewrite those strategy documents again, namely in the field of security. The preparation of a new version of Czech security strategy is taking place in time marked with new trends in world politics and economy. The main attention is attracted by crisis management, arms control, disarmament, WMD non-proliferation, cooperation with non-NATO nations, and international organizations, last but not least counterterrorism and cyberspace security strategy. In short the study mentions Czech political-military ambitions, defence strategy, defence capacity and resources, it appreciates in value knowledge gained by the Centre of Security Policy, Faculty of Social Science, Charles University Prague, and it contains conclusions and recommendations for the preparation the 2011 Czech National Security Strategy.

The defence environment is complex and dynamic. This is a result of the nature of modern conflict, rapid changes in technology, the need to deal with uncertainty in the face of limited sources, changed attitudes to risk and the sheer diversity of actors from different cultural backgrounds. Defence-decision makers are confronted with an increasing operational complexity that has strategic implications. Decisions on defence policy and strategy are characterized by uncertainty and risks. This Article describes differences in Hard and Soft Operational Analyses, and presents some examples and conclusions for military practice.

Operational art is the use of creative thinking by commanders and staffs to design strategies, campaigns, and major operations and organize and employ military forces. This article is a sequel to the study published in a previous issue of this Military Revue. The author discusses the fundamental pillars of operational art, upon which Alliance countries build their doctrinal and defence documents concerning operational art. A separate section deals with conditions and status of operational art in the Army of the Czech Republic in the last 20 years. The author calls for the need to introduce operational art in several key areas of Czech doctrines. He recalls the necessity to implement those issues in the prepared Doctrine of the ACR.

After several years of service with armour corps he devoted himself to social organizations in the forces, among others he was a head of department for military youth. In 1968 he became a deputy Czech minister for youth, PT and sports. During period of normalization he was released from the army. He made his living as a free lance translator and author. After the Velvet Revolution in 1989 he became advisor to deputy defence minister for humanitarian affairs, later he became assistant to deputy defence minister for strategical control, deputy director of Institute for Strategic Studies, deputy director of Institute of International Relations. After his untimely death, the prize named after him for works in the field of defence was established.

The Document ESS 2003 laid down foundations of our present-day security and strategy culture. It was formed as a summary of several historical and political factors that are introduced in two starting chapters, followed by the more detailed analysis into ESS 2003, its main characteristics influencing EU security and strategic culture. The ESS 2003 is compared with the American doctrinal document NSS 2002. The European security strategy of 2003 is not compared with following American strategical documents, as they were unknown in time of its drafting. The author comes into the conclusion that in spite of indisputable differences, the EU shares the same values as the US, and the EU as an American strategical ally is facing the same threats and challenges as the US does, and in case of need, there is a possibility of combined military actions.

In our country we can meet various publications on intelligence activities, nevertheless we feel the lack of expert books with wider overreach. Among those publications that fulfil such demands belongs the work by Ladislav Pokorný "Secret Agencies", Prague: Auditorium, 2012. The book covers intelligence organizations of all kinds, including military ones. In military section the reviewer cites the famous ironic sentence "Under the Czech Law, we have three intelligence services, in fact there are four of them, with five directors". The publication is of high information value and could also serve as a university textbook.

The article focuses on comparing the current legal requirements of the provision of authorized accoutrements uniformed forces and identifies their differences. The article proposes the change in payment of compensation for unused authorized accoutrements. It is not only a matter of Army of the Czech Republic and other uniformed forces of the Czech Republic, e.g. Police of the Czech Republic or Prison Service of the Czech Republic. Uniformed forces ought to receive adequate material support, as they have to distinguish themselves from civilians with the regard to the nature and specifics of their duties.

There is an ambiguous relation as far as management and economy in public sector are concerned. Using the example of British army, the author explains the roots and consequences of changes in the field of source management and compares collected results with the situation in the CR. Both public sector and the Army of the Czech Republic (ACR) are administratively ordered and controlled and meeting the army goals that are not conditioned by economy results. The accounting books do not offer true picture of army possession and properties, among others because the current accountancy system that is not able to classify individual operations, military goals are not measurable. He proposes to set an array of fixed rules to identify ACR economical effectivity.

When the White Paper on Defence was drafted, there was lot optimism as of crisis, then only set in motion. It was regarded as a mere limited, transitional phenomenon. Nowadays we see that it is not a standard crisis known from history, but the so-called systems crises. It is a different sort of crises; we ought to respond by systems reaction in which the society should response to crisis as a whole. This paper originated as a research paper dealing with methods the Czech state should adapt to avert opening crises, with all its sectors and components, including the sector of Department of Defence. The author proposes to draw up a working document "The Army for the Next Twenty Years".

The aim of the article is to provide the readers information related to the theory of fundamental elements and tools of operational art, which are for the preparation and conduct of military operations, particularly at the operational level of war, critical. The operational level of war depends on methods that will create appropriate conditions to achieve the closing state, set by a superior commander, in accordance with the complex strategy of military and non-military instruments of state power. Although the methods of application of specific operational art components rest mainly in the mind of the English Annotations and with several acts tied with civil emergency preparation.

In spite of the fact that the security tensions are not so high as during the cold war, with impending nuclear conflict, the global security situation is far from ideal. Fundamental changes in a global security environment have brought except a lot of positives also many negatives, in a form of various asymmetric security threats. The rise of new military and nonmilitary dangers, under the influence of globalization and contemporary worldwide economic crisis, is directly related to the need of conflict prevention, crisis management, peace missions, law enforcement, or support to humanitarian assistance.