Fulltext search in archive

This article deals with the problem of pursuing 3E policy in Czech MoD. The article shows how helpful it can be for the management of MoD to systemize activities under MoD control to shape the defence programmes as a 3Eprogram. In our forces, even though we have introduced PPBS (Planning, Programming and Budgeting System), still we need other means to shape effectively state defence. The author recommends to organize activities and related elements into seven groups in order that we can judge the impact of functionality of those programmes and its respective 3E, taking into account specific activities realized e.g. by outsourcing or by some other kind of personal substitution. He underlines the importance of proper defence programmes for decisionmaking process in MoD.

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.

In 1939-41 Mr. Kácha was involved in Czech home resistance movement. At the beginning of 1948, the year of communist coup d'état, he became a member of illegal group of democratic army officers and military "academics" (officer candidates) at the Military Academy Hranice, headed by Col. Alexandr Korda. They collected intelligence information and prepared plans for the situation of prospective liberation of Czechoslovakia by Western democratic armies, or the Soviet Union?under the pressure of bad economic conditions or under Western pressure?would withdraw from Eastern Europe. They planned to form control authority to prevent chaos and acts of violence. In September 1949 he was sentenced to life imprisonment, after the Velvet Revolution, in May 1995, he was promoted to the rank of Major General. He was awarded the White Lion Order, Military Division.

Keynesian economics argues that private sector decisions sometimes lead to inefficient macroeconomic outcomes and therefore advocates active policy responses by the public sector, including monetary policy actions and fiscal policy actions by the government to stabilize output over the business cycle. This paper defines the core of Keynesian economics in the mirror of defence expenditures and their influence on country's economy growth. The main attention is paid to the analysis of military-industrial complex and its pressure on armed forces, as one of most important factors introducing a danger of the so-called militarization of both state economy of advanced industrial countries and their social life.

In fact, financial resources together with human and material resources belong to the category of "defence resources". They hold a special position in defence system as financial resources are the multiplier of other sources, forming background for the effort of military commanders and leaders. This situation is caused by one simple fact: without the existence of financial resources there is no way how to pay for both human and material assets. This study describes present conditions and prospects of economical development in the word, as well as in the Czech Republic, during the period from 2000 to 2009. The article further analyses development of armed forces financial requirements, funding trends, and identifies factors that are going to determinate future military expenditures.

The Command and Control process may be defined as an ability to determine what to do and implement effective actions. With the use of the Standard Operating Procedures, the commander must be able to realize set tasks in defined time. The C2 system must be able to monitor and collect data on the situation, to develop an understanding of the situation, to develop a course(s) of action and select one, to develop a plan to execute the selected course of action, to execute the plan, to include providing direction and leadership to subordinates, to monitor execution of the plan and adapt as necessary. The commander draws the picture of situation on the base of surveillance and data collection from various sources, classified and unclassified. The context of information is formed by means of paradigm of personal experiences of commander and his intuition.

The new American doctrinal document called National Security Strategy (NSS 2010) was released in May 2010. Generally, NSS documents outline major national security concerns and plans. The NSS 2010 lays out a strategic approach for advancing American interests, including the security of the American people, growing U.S. economy, and international order that can address 21st century challenges. President Obama is stressing global leadership, dependent on strong and responsible American leadership directing it to ensure other nations follow. He urged Americans to revitalize their own economic, moral and innovative strength to continue to lead the world. The essay by Mr. Eichler is divided into two parts: first one deals with Bush's security policy, and second one deals with documents issued during Obama's presidency. There is a departure from Bush's security strategy that had led to two asymmetric wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. There are interesting nuances. The NSS 2010 for example declares the intention to build deeper and more effective partnerships with key centres of influence-including China, India, which represents among others Obama's retreat from policy of unilateralism.

Suicide bombing represents a low-cost, low-tech weapon that is readily available, requires little training, leaves little forensic trace, and strikes fear into the general population. Almost exclusively, suicide bombers emanate from distinct ethnicities and religions; furthermore, recent history indicates that they come from the Arab/Muslim or East Asian cultures. As important as the suicide bombers are the activists and sympathizers who offer them support and comfort. These activists may recoil from committing acts of violence themselves but may sympathize with those who do, and offer moral and material support. This article explores the psychosocial aspects and methods of suicide bombers in general, but with particular focus on those operating in Palestine, Moscow (Chechen guerrillas, 2002), Singar (Iraq 2007).

Had PhDr. Miroslav Purkrábek, CSc. was still alive today, he would be 80 years old. It was on September 8, 2005, that Miroslav Purkrábek, suffered a stroke. This year it has been fi ve years since he died. He was a person who contributed to social sciences on three distinctive fi elds: military sociology, sociology of military health, and sociology of public policy. As a gifted scholar he expected that alongside with disarmament talks and preparing collective defence, especially after the fall of world?s socialist system, that task of the army would shift towards preventive, threatening role. But he even lived to see the moments when military professionals were engaged in real combat, in preemptive conflicts, against non-traditional, assymetric forces of guerrilla character. At the same time he could see that another hypothesis of transition to all professional forces was going be fulfi lled. Unfortunately, the Czech Army was not prepared for this important process, as political and MoD leaders at were occupied by this theme of professionalization only marginally.

This leading article deals with the sphere of strategy and defence policy. The essay is an output of scholarly work and therefore it is summarizing and evaluating problems in question with professional recommendations. First, the author draws our attention to various concepts of security and underlines national differences backed by national histories. Security concepts have their sources in deep analyses of potential threats and corresponding scenarios, with specific bias to Czech environment. He openly expresses his critical opinions on contemporary security documents, for lack of political security directions, as politicians in general have little knowledge of security and defence problems. In his opinion, the possible outcome lies in a partnership and cooperation with academics outside military and government structures, experts and members of security community, whose expert opinions could help namely to form long-term security concepts.

This paper deals with aspects of intelligence analysis that very often influence the quality of intelligence information utilized by end users. Such analysis requires not only analytical thinking, but also specific experiences of all personnel exploiting collected information. The same body of information may result in multiple analytic products, with different security classifications, time scales, and level of detail. The result of this process is an analytical product - evaluation without any idle speculation and pseudo prophecy. Evaluation and interpretation must describe up-to-date conditions and demonstrate the clusters of future images with alternative developments. Reasonable evaluation reduces uncertainty and makes user's decision easier. At the end the author concentrates on rules of analytical team control and management.

The article is a polemical expression of authors' opinion over this problem. It is related to the orientation of society, political coalitions, and single states towards higher goals. If we admit that the sustainable development of society is the base for securing a peace and stability, then we can state that the question of security or consecutively country defence cover problems of the whole social system, subsystems and system elements. Strategical decision-making ought to be the highest priority in our society. It is indisputable that such decisionmaking deserves scientifi c support. At the end of this article the authors propose a short algorithmic program for Czech military strategy that is planned for the year 2014 and the concept of Czech army development planned for 2015.

The NATO's New Strategic Concept is only starting point to open discussion on a wide range of security problems. At the beginning there is a description of Czech home politics, attitudes of Czech political parties toward NATO alliance. The author explores the history of NATO's identity crisis. In recent years, different security optics of the members splintered NATO. The US wants an expeditionary alliance with a global reach, the Western Europeans hold to a vision of a regional club of liberal democracies, the Central Europeans have a wish so that Washington would stand by them when they will find themselves pressured by Russia. NATO is divided on how to reform its decision-making processes and how to fund and resource its home and away missions. In Afghanistan, the Alliance faces the most difficult operational challenge to date, with a real possibility of strategic failure. The overarching problem is how to define the core business of NATO: cyber defence, energy security, WMD proliferation, stability and reconstruction missions, out-of-area missions, territorial security, enlargement, partnership-building. The discussion over the New Strategic Concept needs to reorder the question how to define NATO's appropriate roles and go from there.

The article is focused on issue of hybridisation of Al Qai'da in Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), in North Africa, and its implications for European countries. The process of hybridisation is being conceived as growing nexus and convergence between violent non-state actors, while these processes could be in this case identified mainly in issues of use of kidnappings and secondary also reported involvement of AQIM in regional smuggling, mainly drugs, activities through Sahel and Saharan region to Europe. Regarding GSPC background, AQIM could be in long term theoretically able to re-establish its financial and supporting networks in Europe via cooperation with organized crime, which were largely disrupted after major crackdowns by security forces between 2004-2007. Event though a direct Al Qai'da attack in Europe is-according to the author-excluded, the purpose of this article to draw our attention to an eventuality of rebirth of European operation network of AQIM operational predecessor, i.e. GSPC.

The paper deals with the assessment of extremism in connection with the Czech Armed Forces. It analyses attitudes of various forms of Czech domestic extremist movements to the military sphere and possible impacts of the infiltration of extremists into the army, namely in time of danger (training militant activities, including paramilitarism, subversion, espionage, etc). The most important problem of the contemporary Czech counter-extremist policy in this area is the rise of neo-Nazi activities in the armed forces and the establishing of extreme right paramilitary units which take interest in the engagement of soldiers. Even though these activities are limited in our country, the author offers overall survey various obscure organizations, having connections to foreign groups sponsoring their Czech counterparts.

This is another publication by Mr. Jan Eichler. It consits of three parts: the fi rst one defines nearly three dozens of basic terms in the field of security, the second one deals with wars in the 90?s, and finally third part concentrates on terrorism. The book has evidently pedagogical bias, with explanatory character. Under the influence of foremost sociologist Ulrich Beck, Jan Eichler interprets risks as ?social phenomena? derived from threats. The author also evaluates wars in Africa, Asia and Latin America, in Serbia or the Persian Gulf, which took place in 1990-2001. There were 120 armed confl icts, with 94 % victims from among civil population (compared with 50 % of WWII and 15 % WWI). In those wars bellingerent parties deployed weapons of all sorts, with the exception of WMD. As far as international terrorism is concerned, the author sees as its primary characterists the absence of warning before terrorist attacks are accomplished.

Relations between NATO and the Russian Federation are one of key factors influencing overall policy of the whole North Atlantic Alliance. They are complicated and sophisticated questions still predisposed by the heritage of the Cold War.But there are mutual fears, common security problems they both have to counter. NATO policy must be established upon present-day reality. It is self-evident that there are common fields of common interests in which mutual balance must be reached. There are among others: armament, preventing arms proliferation, halting proliferation of nuclear, biological and chemical agents, antimissiles defence, counter-terrorism, drugs smuggling, open sea security, common peace operations. After two years the Russian-Georgia war started, military cooperation between Russia and NATO was re-established. Separate problem in midterm prospects presents the solving of conflict in Afghanistan.

The outcomes of battles and fighting are significantly influenced by weather conditions. Together with other important circumstances they decide a chosen combat strategy, operational art, warfare tactics, and ways of personnel and vehicles deployment; consequently the volume of losses or casualties. The authors recount the establishing of weather service within individual arms, creating fi rst weather charts, they give details on situation in pre-war republic, during WWII, in the 50s, even after the Velvet Revolution in 1989. They mention the names of eminent personalities of Czech Hydrometeorological Service to be honoured and remembered. We must also remind that our Hydrometeorological Service works not only in favour of the ACR, but also for other NATO countries.

In essence, the world is organizing itself in a series of interconnected networks. The information revolution will cause shifts, both in how societies may come into conflict and how their armed forces may wage war. Cyber war is coming. Its concept refers to information-related conflict both at a grand level, between nations or societies, and at low levels of international subgroups, e.g. terrorists of any kind, e.g. Al Qaeda, etc. The concept may involve public diplomacy measures, political and cultural subversion, deception or interference with local media, infiltration of computer networks and databases, and efforts to promote dissident or opposition movements across computer networks. Terrorists may build mutual connections, shape opinions in target groups, and conduct intense propaganda and psychological operations campaigns. Guerrilla warfare in cyberspace can use those networks to maximize their political, economic, and social power while minimizing the military aspects until the final offensive. The source: T. Hammes, Jane's Defence Weekly, 5/2005 (nas).

Asymmetric operations lack some linear qualifications at operational levels and split themselves into dozens of tactical warfares. This type of warfare demands quick analytical thinking tied with intelligence preparation of the battlefield, formulating specific information requirement to fill in the missing elements in information requests. As to technological potential, military intelligence is developing very fast. So, the intelligence analysts transfer the main information burden on various information systems, e.g. JSTARS (Joint Deployable Intelligence Support System), AWACS (Airborne Warning and Control System), ASAS (All Source Analysis System), or JDISS (Joint Deployable Intelligence Support System). But large capacities of those systems gave rise to another logical judgement that leads to different interpretation of intelligence data, i.e. the judgements corresponding to higher levels (operational and above) of analytical thinking. Nevertheless, tactical warfare represents operations of small tactical units and this fact puts the main burden on an intelligence analyst who must very quickly cover the gaps in intelligence reports and adopt appropriate decisions.

Soldiers are trained for combat situations. But peace missions are not tied with the fight. In some measure, they remind more civil police actions: patrolling, duties at sentry points. But still they are activities done by servicemen; those who retire are called "military veterans". Peacekeepers are exposed to high level of stress situations. People who experience a high level of stress for a long time may become irritable, socially withdrawn, and emotionally unstable. Some people under intense and prolonged stress may start to suffer from extreme anxiety, depression, or other severe emotional problems. All psychological research can be divided into two groups: first dealing with actual stress symptoms, the second one dealing with inner structure of individual stress. Discussed model was formed according the pattern of American airborne units deployed in the Sinai Peninsula. Dimensions of psychological stress in peacekeeping operations are formed above all by "boredom", the real threats are in fact at the end of risk scale. More stress reactions come after the mission ends. Such drafted model can be used also in the Army of the Czech Republic, or in international missions of the Police Force of the Czech Republic ...244

This article contains main ideas from the essay by James J. Wirtz published in anthology Paradoxes of Strategic Intelligence, Frank Cass 2003. This theory is a unifying explanation of why states, for example, attempt to surprise their opponents with diplomatic or military initiatives. Surprise often is described as a force multiplier; something that increases the effectiveness of one's forces in combat. The prospect of surprise can prompt political leaders of the weaker side to believe that they can nullify that disparity and achieve their objectives. In other words, if strong parties began to view conflict from the weaker party's perspective, while weak actors kept war's dialectic in mind, then surprise would become less likely. The theory of surprise can identify when it is likely to occur, who is likely to find the element of surprise attractive as a basis of policy or strategy, and who is likely to be its victim. The trick now lies in making operational use of the theory of surprise.

The author, the former chief military chaplain, nowadays an advisor to the Czech defence minister, summarizes all relevant views on global responses to terrorism. The deadly attacks against Word Trade Center were more than acts of terror, they were acts of war. International law makes it possible to hunt the perpetrators, organizers and instigators of terrorism wherever they are. Immediately after the 11 September attacks on the United States, the Security Council expressed its determination to combat, by all means, threats to international peace and security caused by terrorist acts. The Council reaffirmed the inherent right of individual or collective self-defence in accordance with the Charter of United Nations. The States concerned have set their current military action in Afghanistan in that context. Col. Holub quotes individual views on war expressed by leaders of the U.S., NATO, United Nations, international law specialists, high Catholic clergy, ideas of Bishop Conference, and those of religious groupings. He doesn't come to any conclusion; he only wants to initiate a wide-ranging ethic discussion, as the traditional concept of the "just war" doesn't fit to this new situation. In his opinion, the core of problem lies in justifiability or unjustifiability of preventive war.

The professionalization of modern forces is an upcoming trend in all advanced democratic countries. It is demanded by complexity of current armed fight, advanced sophisticated weapons systems, antipathy of young people to serve in forces; established selective service was not solution, as it was more or less tied with bribery. In our country, compulsory military service was abolished after 135 years of its existence, in 2005. Mr. Pernica, the author of a book "Professionalization of Armed Forces: Trends, Theory, Experience", published by Czech Military Agency of Information and Services, treats military service as a sort of public enterprise in market of labour force. He introduces two models of armed forces: conscript service and volunteer service. At the end of this review Mr. Rašek points out that under the condition prevailing security risks and wide-spread interventionist policy, there is a possibility that we shall have to return to conscription system.

The CPX Battle Group 2007 was the Strategic and Operational Studies Institute key exercise in the field of CZe/sVK Battle Group EU. It was aimed at increasing operational capability of the Higher Officers Courses attendants in conducting integrated expeditionary and network centric operations in asymmetric environment, in a rapid, mobile, flexible and versatile manner. The exercise was held in May and June, 2007, at the University of Defence Campus, Brno. The aim of this article is to present the latest developments of the rapidly deployable EU Battle Groups and provide better understanding to the complexities of setting up a multinational high-readiness unit for peace-support and crisis management. The author discusses some issues and problem of the concept, similarities and differences between the Battle Group Concept and the NRF, Headline Goal 2010, and some tactical issues related to the operations. Some alternative options on how to further develop this Battle Group Concept are proposed at the end of the study.

Political extremists as an anti-system opposition present an impending threat to democracy. They use both legal and illegal methods of fight against society. In our country, all wings of extremist movement are present, even though the Czech Home Office suspended the activities of hard left and right organizations. The author holds wider concept of extremism. He classes among extremists also the so-called darkers and phakers and ani-globalist street parties, in which strange personages with anarchy background took part in. With them, there are subsequent forms of sub-culture tied: squatting, darking, hooligans, and graffiti. Among others, the author puts the stress on prevention. Anti-extremist policy must be complex: regulations and remedies are overlapping. The antiextremist precautions are accepted not only by state institutions primarily concentrated on inner security, but also within the bodies such as Ministry of Defence, Security and Information Agency, Military Intelligence and Counter-Intelligence, Office for Foreign Relations and Information, various educational, youth and cultural organizations.

The purpose of this article is to explain methods of the application of artillery fire, according to the width and shape of targets by artillery regiment (without rocket battery) and by artillery battery, if components/data for effective fire are set by substitute means, without computer with respective SW. The assignment of optimal method of artillery fire and its professional implementation has a great influence on FFE (fire for effect). For the sake of economy, live firing practice is executed only to a limited extend. Most of activities are carried out only in the field of command skills, keeping documents, commanders' performance and training gun crews; their reactions to commands and orders. The article is accompanied by several tablets with data concerning application of artillery fire, variable data for aiming devices, adjusted ranges of fire, widths of target divided into several sheaves of fire (converge sheaf, sheaf for target width), their corrections.

In the Czech Republic, the schooling of security experts is broken into fragments, i.e. into many fields of study, which go beyond security politics. The state of affairs can't be regarded as satisfactory. The first step is the Resolution of Czech Security Council No. 32/2007, Common Minimum for Security Experts, which put a proposal to introduce security issues into teaching programmes in universities and institutions of further education, so that such institutions could obtain accreditation in this field. This minimum is specified namely for undergraduate study; graduated security studies ought to be more specialized. Political scientists involved in the study of security policy should attempt to devise solutions for problems of public concern. Security study covers issues such as non-military threats and risks, proliferation, pollution, natural disasters, mass migration, economy risks. It is tied with international relations, foreign policy and national security strategies.

We have no many characters that unlike Ivan Gabal could move on the edge of practice, academic world and politics, dealing with incomparable themes: foreign policy, security, terrorism, Europe vs. the Czech Republic and vice versa. Referred chapters are entitled NATO, EU, Radar, the Army of the Czech Republic. Among others, Mr. Gabal compares Czech army with its English and American counterparts, evidently better than ours, because those armies have not undergone such troublesome history in the last hundred years as the ACR. Ivan Gabal's editorials, sociological analyses, critical and professional articles from 1997-2007, when focusing on safety and the Army of the Czech Republic, uncover a striking lack of conceptual planning and incompetence of the post-November political elites.