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This text is focused on current situation in Syria and Iraq and so called Islamic State, the one of the biggest threats of contemporary world. The rise of this quasi­state at background of civil war in Syria and still not fully solved conflict in Iraq is the result of involvement of many internal and external actors. The form of their involvement and especially their goals are very different from each other and despite sporadic and declaratory agreements in partial points the main reason the Islamic State still exists in very good shape is disunited attitude of local and external powers against it. The main aim of this text is to explain and to analyze main motives and goals of all relevant actors and sides of mentioned conflict and describe the way they affect its dynamics. Due to that it is possible to increase the knowledge of readers in such a chaotic, unclear and often misinterpreted situation in the Middle-East.

The paper solved changes in the legislation and the Analyse of continuance of the railway transport branch after the State of National Emergency announce or the State of War announce The analyse highlights on actual difference between documentation (the Operational Read- iness of National Territory) and real options. Long­time and gradual impacts in the entire domain decrease real possibilities of the system. The final step has been cancel of mobilization delivery for protecting and recovery of designated railway network without any measures. The paper offers possible solution of that situation.

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.

Presented analysis of interviews with officers at various level of command from 2004 - 2008 is aimed on their view of the process of command. On the basis of qualitative research we consider the recent way of command of the Czech officers intuitive and individual. It characterizes most common way to command, based just on experience. We consider differentiation in the way of leading and motivation of subordinates among types of forces and military specializations. The reflection of the professionalization, the training system, the perception of learned/natural ability to command and their career is offered to discussion in the context of changes in direction of education of Czech officers and commanders.

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 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.

The fundamental regulation of governmental invests is Czech Act on Public Contracts. Its main objective is a financial saving in the procurement of goods and services by the state. In some specific cases, this objective may come into a conflict with other interests protected by a law. Several verdicts recently delivered by courts in criminal cases relating to a procurement of medical supplies bring a new and interesting insight into this issue. Some conflicts with social interest were identified on basis of these verdicts. These interests are the maintaining of the Czech Republic Armed Forces combat capability and its function in peace-time, fulfilment of international obligations of the Czech Republic and the requirement for the strict adherence to military orders. Some cases, in which different interests outweigh the interest protected by the Act on Public Contracts, were found.

This article describes the doctrinal determination and definitions of the term Actionable Intelligence and the impact of this specific intelligence concepton commander's decision-making process. The part of this report deals with the position of Actionable Intelligence in intelligence branch, concretely in connection with the intelligence disciplines and particular stages within intelligence cycle. There is also the accentuation of interconnection to the importance of intelligence information sharing, early warning systems and force protection on tactical level. The next part of this article is focused on the impact of intelligence support on commander's decision-making processes.

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.

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.

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.

Although private military companies like the former Blackwater were regarded as a relatively new phenomenon in international security, their history is not new. The participation of private individuals, and /or groups of private individuals, soldiers of fortune, in "foreign" armed conflicts is at least as old as the history of wars by itself. It is impossible to open a debate about the scope and possible impact of the current use of private military and security companies without knowing and evaluating their long-term historical developments. The goal of this study is therefore to map the history of the use of private military forces, their involvement in various conflicts, services they offer, among others, from the point of international law.

Understanding the importance and role of present-day operational art is not always a matter of knowledge of relevant doctrinal publications or the use of experiences from military operations. Number of aspects of operational art had their roots deep in the history of warfare. Many of them are unknown or forgotten. This article aims to give the reader some basic information about the context that led to the awareness of the need of operational art and finally to real fulfilling the imaginary gap between strategy and tactics, which was the place for operational art. The article briefly describes the background of the emergence of operational art and the approach of two basic schools of military theory: Soviet and German that were crucial to its development.

Existing military medical service and health care in armed forces is tied by many official legislative norms by Ministry of Health that are difficult to follow by military structures, military manuals and inner rules. The authors trace current legislative framework that limits medical treatment and respective institutions of military medical care. They identify possible problems and suggest solutions how to overcome emerging troubles. The present MoD regulation No. 285/1999 does not meet reality and must be updated.

With the running changes in methods of modern operations within NATO framework, there are also changes in demands and tasks in the scope of civil-military operations-CIMIC. They are incorporated in many documents, such as the Comprehensive Political Guidance, New Concept of Civil-Military Cooperation or Field Manual 3-07 Stability Operations. The CIMIC capacities ought to be used for active impact on impending security situation, crisis development, impact implemented more sooner then crises might escalate to conflicts, eventually they could be used to halt the conflicts, in the places where they are a threat to Alliance security. We must create new rules of co-operations between civil and military sections, with the use of Alliance materials, resources and documents from conferences, seminars and field working shops. Today we have also abundant experiences that the Army of the Czech Republic, its CIMIC section, have acquired in preceding ten years.

At first, we are familiarised with terms of extremism, Romanies (Gypsies), anarchists, neo-Nazis, then the author introduces possible picture of security situation at the turn of second and third decades of 21st century. He believes that in every country there is a limited ability to integrate ethnic groups by majority. As soon as the limits are exceeded, problems begin. His scenario ends with a pessimistic vision: increasing tensions will ask army deployment, but even local armed forces are not able to enforce law and order, therefore the government must ask for help neighbouring states.

The primary purpose for NATO enlargement, covering first three countries of the so-called Visegrad Four and later Slovakia, was the necessity to fulfil "security vacuum" in Central and subsequently in Eastern Europe which came into existence after the fall of Soviet empire. Membership of those countries helped to fix criteria for admission of other states to the Alliance. Today, the NATO alliance stands in front of new important challenge: to work out a New Strategic Concept agreement in late 2010, based upon the idea saying that the security of Euro-Atlantic region is tied with and depends on the safety of the whole world. This safety concept will able to be realized only by means of global strategical governance. More then predicting expected security and defence ideas, the author reopens a broader discussion about the real meaning of NATO membership. He also repeats and enumerates risks and threats we are facing today.

The article aims at highlighting the dangers of long underestimating the need to permanently improve the defense capabilities to deal with current and future security threats. Authors suggest propositions on where to direct the efforts to improve the competence of the Defense to meet the Act Of Defense Requirements. The first part of the article describes, after brief analysis, the options of collective defense and explains the need to solve demanding tasks on own territory under national responsibility in parallel. The second part of the article describes the main thoughts of the theory of "territorial defense", which is missing in current Doctrine of the Armed Forces of the Czech Republic. Theory of territorial defense makes a foundation, upon which the preparedness of the Armed forces of the Czech Republic should be built. In the third part of the article the authors discuss the alternative of implementing the collective defense principle by building multinational joint forces, independent of national armed forces, in transnational responsibility of the coalition of member states, dedicated to the territorial defense of member states and to crisis response expeditionary operations.

There are many reasons to start learning French. With the involvement of our professionals in missions in Mali, it has also become desirable to improve their language skills before their departure. We interviewed those who attended the language courses at the Language Centre of the University of Defence. They confirm that the knowledge of English is not always sufficient. This interview can be inspiring for those who are going to fulfil their duties in the missions in the African continent. We also present statistical data related to the number of French-speaking Czech soldiers and some tips how to maintain the level of French after completing a course.

The process of the Lessons Learned in the Czech Armed Forces is not ideal for several reasons. One of them is the underestimation of the process by top management. Another one is the low level of awareness of the process, institutions, possibilities and importance of the Lessons Learned Process as a whole. The aim of this article is to clarify the Lessons Learned Process as a tool to support the organization. The first part of the article deals with the process of the Lessons Learned in the Czech Armed Forces including terminology. The second part of the article describes the factual implementation of the Lessons Learned in the Czech Armed Forces. It points out achievements as well as drawbacks during its implementation. In addition to that, it introduces the current Czech military publications dealing with this topic. The conclusion presents the description of some suggestions and recommendations for further development of this process.

The article deals with the issue of creation and realization of space policy. Space programs of individual states are closely connected to decision-making processes of the (general) state (public) policy. Therefore we can raise a question which factors influence these processes and the formulation of space policy and also if they are so unique that could be related only to one particular state. The aim of this article is to focus on one of the factors influencing space policy-strategic culture. Its influence is analysed through case studies of seven nations. Each case study is divided into two parts. First, we identify relevant characteristics of the state's strategic culture. Then, we analyse whether and how the identified characteristics of the respective strategic culture influence the space policy of a state in question. This article seeks to contribute to the growing debate about space as "the next" strategic area and highlights rather overlooked reasons of space exploration.

The text deals with the use of border defense as a means of protection against guerrilla attacks and infiltration, through a combination of principles of modern stationary fortifications and forward area defense. These are discussed on the case study of the Northern Border Security Project of Saudi Arabia. The role of attacker takes quasi-state formation the Islamic State (IS, ISIS, ISIL). The aim is to analyze whether the project would endure distinctive types of asymmetric attacks. Vulnerability prioritization for each component determines the most likely targets and their characteristics. This is a subjective semi quantitative method known as CARVER matrix. Subsequently, based on established premises, the text discusses three selected scenarios that use guerrilla tactics with elements of terrorism against selected targets. Attack scenarios show some of the possible ways of improvement for the project. In conclusion, the author makes recommendations for possible adjustments and assess the potential of using the project as a protection against asymmetric attacks. After reading the text, the reader is informed about the project, its components, as well as recommendations that can be applied in the further use of this type of defense.

There is a substantional difference between reformation and transformation. The latter represents a qualitative change or the re-creation; while the former is only a change, redressing, correction of errors or faults. In Czech military press, the basic principles of NATO transformation were described several times. Since 2004, when the document "Strategic Vision: The Military Vision" was published, many other documents have been released: Comprehensive Political Guidance (CPG), Guidance for Military Implementation of CPG, Concept for Alliance Future Joint Operations, NATO Task List. Every operational concept has to evaluate all factors from various fields. The method is expressed by the short DOTMLPF, which stands for Doctrine, Organization, Training, Materiel, Leadership and education, Personnel and Facilities. The Concept Development and Experimentation is of multinational character and is the most successful transformation tool within NATO countries, namely in the U.S., Canada, Great Britain, Norway, etc. Lessons Learned system supplies feedback between national forces experiences and concepts, via DOTMLPF. The key role is played by the Joint Analysis and Lessons Learned Centre in Lisbon, Portugal.

The article deals with the development of the security system since the November 1989 events. Special attention is paid to the situation near the year 2005, when the last opportunity to update a comprehensive concept of security system occurred. The text deals with the comprehensive management of the security system issue. The authors of the article present key events and strategic documents forming the current shape of the Czech security system. In the final part of article, you can find the proposal of the strategic document management system within the security development system. Article results in the knowledge that the modern security system concept is still challenge for us.

The article provides necessary information about the link between lifelong learning and the education and training of personnel within the Ministry of Defence of the Czech Republic sector. It offers the information about the relationship between the class management system and distance and electronic education. It deals with the implementation of the class management system in career courses of professional soldiers under the auspices of the Centre for Security and Military Strategic Studies of the University of Defence. It clarifies the course of study in career courses, identifies the problems and generates their possible solutions.

The article deals with correlation of strategy and operational art. The aim of the article is to point on deficit of relationship between political decision-making and military planning. The first part of the article simply introduces doctrinal tools of operational art, applicable at both the operational and strategic level. The second part refers to the fact that application of some standard elements of operational art in terms of overall strategic framework loses partly importance because of their use in the context of unconventional conflict has been less appropriate. The third part deals with criticism of the mutual undesirable separation of politicians and military professionals involved in operations planning. Conclusion of the article offers possible solutions of this deficit.

The article presents partial conclusions of the questionnaire survey on "Problem Solving in the Defence Department of the Czech Republic". First, possible types of the addressed problems and methods for solving the ill-structured problems are characterized. The aim of the empirical research, whose findings are presented, was to identify the ill-structured problems that are solved in the CR Defence Department, and to find out the extent of the use of the methods for problem solving within the mentioned organization. In order to collect data, a semi-structured questionnaire was developed. The total of 135 questionnaires provided data for evaluation. The respondents from the researched organization mostly meet the problems which are related to a planning process, also to a change of an organizational structure, training preparation and processing of internal regulations. The methods, which are used to solve the quoted problems in the Defence Department, are expert panel discussion, interview, brainstorming, wargaming (pros and cons analysis), SWOT analysis, analysis of concerned parties and an objective tree.The rules and recommendations for solving ill-structured problems in the CR Department of Defence are defined, based on the found out information, toward the end of the article.

The topic of this essay is an insight into the interrelations of the economic analysis of armed conflict. The author tries to explain its substance and importance and at the same time he warns against the difficulties with its implementation. Backed by several studies, we must conclude that there is a lot of confusion in terminology we use. It is therefore proposed to apply cost-benefit analysis, so that we could create a unified terminology and simultaneously to use this analysis to present armed conflict economy in terms of overall expenses vs. likely benefits aroused by respective armed warfare.