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This article presents a case study dealing with the system of logistical support at Kyjov town. This kind of support demands a full evacuation of all citizens, ensuring emergency housing and sustenance both deployed persons from integrated rescue corps and evacuated persons. The result of this study is a proposal to update the crisis plan of Kyjov.

Shortly after the Czech government gave its approval with conclusions and goals of White Paper on Defence, the Defence Ministry and the General Staff began to fulfil assigned objectives. The body that did not keep its word was the Czech government. Defence budget was reduced and military officials had to look for further emergency solutions. The author thinks that we are in a point when it is necessary to open a wide debate over the responsibility for country defence, the state of armed forces, defence capabilities. He concludes that this Military Review should be the best place to start with.

The re-election of Barrack Obama implies that the President preferring political solutions to military ones will have remained for the next four years in the White House. As far U. S. strategy culture is concerned, without doubts American armed forces are going to be prepared to be modern, strong, agile and capable to meet the U.S. National Security strategy goals whatever and wherever they might be. Simultaneously, Obama´s programme for his second term presupposes to close down several military bases all around the world, together with reductions in the size of forces, manpower. Only the most important will be preserved. The further development will be therefore predestined by necessary quantitative reductions, but at the same time by qualitative updating American armed forces, and by the stress on power projection capabilities to take an active approach to counter any threats worldwide.

The conversion of military ranks poses an enormous difficulty due to great differences in hierarchical structures between different national armies. This article written by the Director of Defence Language Institute Vyškov will give a short overview of most common troubles. The problem here is that national armies mostly represent national cultures as well. Translations of titles of high-rank military personnel are not too complicated. More problematic is finding equivalents for less-known, more specific ranks or those of other national Armed Forces. NATO has agreed upon a common standard for their translation, the norm STANAG 2116, based on NATO codes representing levels of ranks according to their duties, responsibilities, and career requirements.

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 polemic by Mr. Luboš Dobrovský in his essay in Military Review, No. 2, 2013, is based upon a critical idea that even though the Czech government approved conclusions and goals set by the White Paper on Defence, the MoD and the General Staff began to fulfil their duties, the government did not carry out its obligations. The author came to the same conclusion same time ago. But he didn't agree with the proposition that the army in a state of emergency. Such a verdict is rather exaggerating, the author believes, as Czech defence department is still able to fulfil both its Alliance commitments, missions abroad, or home assignments, e.g. support to integrated rescue system. What's missing is a critical reflection over economical management. Data, numbers, and facts are attached.

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.

This paper deals with theoretical and practical correlations of "additional" savings in defence sector. Referring to conclusions of White Paper of Defence, the author differencites between rational savings and irrational ones, i.e. the false savings. Rational savings lead us to higher economy, effecitivy and usefulness. Irrational savings present non-system measures when respective "cuts" are only for for appearance's sake, the savings are only for show. In reality, in terms of long-term prospects they will bring even higher social expenditures before those "cuts" were introduced. The author proposes several recommendations concerning effective saving to eliminate wasting defence sources.

The article is an analysis of the further development of mechanized battalions of Czech forces (ACR). The defence department will have to take a major decision how to replace old tracked infantry combat vehicles (ICVs) BVP-2. Several years ago, it was decided to acquire those vehicles for one brigade, so the best option could be to keep this project on. The acquisition and simultaneous operations of two similar vehicles, wheeled and tracked ones, are not effective for forces of ACR size. The extra costs of operation would not produce an adequate increase in capabilities of mechanized units. The author presents dozens of arguments to support this conclusion and at the end he makes recommendations for the future acquisition strategy in Czech defence department.

The article is involved in the problems of providing humanitarian aid. The authors analyze legislative and social surroundings upon which the humanitarian assistance is rendered by the Army of the Czech Republic. They characterize various forms of non-governmental organizations in our country and the conditions under which the Czech Army is allowed to cooperate with them. There are many special features in providing assistance, namely as far as members of various church denominations in the Czech Republic are concerned. The list of selected denominations with their short profiles is enclosed.

The purpose of this paper is to define cyberterrorism phenomenon with the use of available documents, reports, and expert texts, and to evaluate its role and occurrence in contemporary world's events. The cyberterrorism is very often discussed nowadays, but there is a total lack of any consensus as far as a precision definition is concerned. The critique of current state is summarized at the end of the final chapter, describing leading causes of present situation, i.e. a situation when the cyberterrorism is discussed, politicised, all repeatedly underline its dangerousness, but in practice no cyber attract has occurred.

As a consequence of shrinking military budget, secondary military schools in the Czech Republic were considerably reduced. Actually, there is only one left nowadays. Its future is rather dim, not only due to the Financial Outlook for 2018. The White Paper on Defence 2011 postulated educational scope offered by any secondary military school. But such mission could be easily transferred on other school institutions, without any impact on the national security. Even other Czech state institutions, dealing with national security, very soon will have to answer such to-be-or-not-to-be question. Namely the Ministry of Interior, struggling to economize, runs two secondary schools of its own. This article is a summary of the evolution of secondary schools needed for national security purposes, since 1993. It challenges the conservative point of view saying that in no case their educational capabilities could be substituted.

Crime prevention belongs among main and long-term tasks in work with personnel in the MoD Sector. It is organized at three levels: interagency, departmental and local. It is concentrated at decreasing risk factors that usually contribute to criminal behaviour. In the near future, when organizational structure of MoD will be optimalized, current valid documents dealing with crime prevention are going to be reassessed, so they could meet new requirements of command and control system. They will be more directed to problems of extremism, property-related crimes, alcohol addiction, drug and non-drug abuse.

The classification of a term of "decontamination" comes out not only from the Alliance norms, national military regulations and publications, but also from the documents that deal with the conception of decontamination for civilian purposes, i.e. from documents of the Fire Rescue Brigades of the Czech Republic. The study of both Alliance and national documents has proved that in many cases this term is being introduced in a different way which might cause not very homogenous interpretation and understanding to accomplished decontamination measurements and thus even overall disunity in a framework not only of Alliance, but also in selected basic and other parts of the Integrated Rescue System of the Czech Republic. The paper analyses approaches to the term of "decontamination"practically only by means of definitions in use nowadays. At the end of this document there are recommendations which ought be considered by the management of the Czech Armed Forces Chemical Corps within the area of its respective interest.

The final extended deadline, established by the Chemical Weapons Convention for the destruction of chemical weapons, passed in 2012. Despite all efforts and enormous amount of funds, the goal to destroy all chemical weapons within this date has not been achieved. The authors enumerate states that this fulfilled this resolution and others that this task did not accomplished, for some reasons. According to the destruction plans, the Russian Federation should complete the destruction by the end of 2015, Libya by the end of 2016, and the United States not until September 2023.

EU Battle Group CZE/SVK was formed as the part of a long-term strategy to turn the Czech Army from static defence, garrison force, to mobile, expeditionary formations capable to participate in EU common security and defence policy operations. In June 2003, the first EU autonomous military crisis management operation Artermis was launched. It successfully demonstrated EU ability to operate with quite a small Interim Emergency Multinational Force (IEMF) in a highly hostile environment. The IEMF, dispatched 6,500 km from Brussels, operated under the UNSC mandate, in cooperation with UN forces (MONUC) in the Ituri District, Democratic Republic of the Congo. Operation Artermis demonstrated the need for further development of rapid response capabilities. Subsequently, it has become a reference model for the development of Battle Groups, with rapid response capability. Lessons learned are valuable for Czech army planners being involved in force planning, or building the first EU Battle Group CZE/SVK. All information and sources for this paper were drawn from unclassified sources.

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.

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 White Paper on Defence was approved by the Government of the Czech Republic on 18 May 2011. The article describes a circumstances of the document development and its substance and role in the family of the defence strategic documents. In addition, the article highlights some important measures of the White Paper that has been implemented in practice. The author who was a member of the committee, responsible for development, and an editor of the White Paper, responds to some voices, claiming that the document has not come up to expectations and it is not usable for the future of the Czech Armed Forces. The author presents his lessons learned from the development and implementation of the document and describes some recommendations for the future.

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.

This article deals with objectives of EU BGs, required abilities and possible employment, namely from the legal point of view. Last but not least, there are mentioned relations between NATO and EU BG. Military capabilities of the EU are closely tied not only with the second pillar of the ?Maastricht Temple? (Common Foreign And Security Policy), but they are united with the activities of the EU as a whole (with all three pillars). The EU should have the potential to carry out independent military actions to solve international crises. The Battle Group is the smallest independent military unit (group) capable of being deployed in the area of operation. It is a combined arms grouping, the exact composition will vary according to the tactical requirement at the time. One of new BG?s tasks will be separation of parties by force. The ACR has earmarked the same units both for NATO and the EU led operations. This future deployment is specified in the current Czech Military Strategy and related documents. Now we are preparing the documents for building up common Czech and Slovak Battle Group (EU CZE/SVK BG).

This article is primarily engaged in the analysis of existing situation in the area of securing outfit components and in the assessment of the level of support provided to women and men working in the Czech Army. It evaluates the current state of supplying the soldiers with all necessary outfits in compliance with the current legislation and the way of its actual implementation. It analyses the current legislation and the possibilities of distribution of uniforms to their end users. The assessment primarily addresses the fulfilment of objectives for which the distribution system of uniforms was established.

The article deals with using of simulation technology for training commanders and staffs in new types of operations. It summaries the overall development in the area, occurred since the establishment of the Center of Simulation and Training Technologies. There are presented turning points in training on simulators, i. e. requirements for combat in urban area, special operations of small units, of ground forces interaction with supporting units, the use of command and control systems and the cooperation between the military and rescue workers. It also points to the new requirements in the fields of training and shows possible ways of their solution. The second part deals with problems of NEC and its implementation into simulation systems. The article presents the results of SIMNEC defence research and its contribution to the future expansion of the capabilities of tactical simulator.

The defence of air area was always of vitally importance, both for fighting off an aggressor or enforcing our own goals in offensive operations. The article deals only with one of "pillars" of air defence (AD), namely by active means of its land elements. We do not deal with active elements of flying segments, reconnaissance means and command and control systems of Air Force. The authors not only recapitulate the development of active means of land AD elements on the territory of the Czech Republic with the emphasis on the past 20 years, but at the same time they would like to highlight the importance of this arms for effective country defence.

The role of civil-military cooperation (CIMIC) is increasing in the post-modern wars (operations). CIMIC is a significant element at the coordination of military and civilian participant activities over current military operations. New tasks for actors are as result from new NATO concept and outline new tasks dimension. The armed forces as well as the Army of the Czech Republic (ACR), have to solve many problems associated with this new dimension. The article outlines a possible set of activities associated with the new approach to CIMIC in crisis management in the context of the Alliance operation.

The overall purpose of this paper is to describe the ways the Alliance and the also the Czech Army will apply the operational art tenets, conducting operations in the future. The current military problems cannot be solved without a deep understanding and knowledge of operational art. In order to improve military thinking within the Czech Army, it is recommended to study and apply operational art. The operational art forms a bridge between strategy defining the political aims of war and tactics, fighting the battles. Commanders and staff officers should study operational art seriously, systematically and with all their efforts. The author deals with current state of present operational art to inform on new developments in this field of military art. The article broadens the vision and deepens the insights of its readers. All information and data for this paper were drawn from unclassified sources.