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The main goal of the presented article is to evaluate the impact of Japanese missile defence development on the regional strategic stability in Northeast Asia. The goal is reached through an analysis of interaction between missile defence and roles of ballistic missiles in Chinese and North Korean strategies towards Japan, while also taking into account the alternative policies which Japan might have used in response to the ballistic missile threat. According to the analysis, the development of the Japanese missile defence does not degrade strategic stability in the discussed region.

The article informs about methods and ways of maintenance and repairing military equipment, armament, materiel, for the duration of UN international missions. It depicts the whole system, including personnel duties during maintenance and recovery of materiel in the areas of United Nations peacekeeping operations. Further it explains some maintenance rules and activities done while scheduling the maintenance and repairing scheme, as well as contracted services.

The fire support is an inevitable prerequisite for the success of combat forces in land military operations and artillery is its key provider. Will it be even in a future complex and uncertain operating environment? The article recalls high requirements on the current ACR artillery and with the use of the Alliance partner's findings, it points to selected aspects that might influence its capabilities development towards the future operations. The article defines artillery as an indirect fire system and clarifies its role and tasks in the framework of joint fire support. It proposes measures to increase the quality of its training and management. It discusses the issue of an operational concept and its importance for the future ACR artillery, together with introducing main trends in areas of its potential development.

The paper describes a design concept of a lightweight armoured vehicle set "S-LOV-CBRN". The equipment of this set allows its crew to carry out a safe reconnaissance activities in areas with unknown situation under chemical, biological and radiological risks (CBRN reconnaissance), as well as the risk of contact with armed opponents.

Strategy and strategic culture influence everyday lives of soldier and military units, as well as the system of their preparation for combats. In case of wars, they have a decisive impact on the destiny of civilian population. The strategic culture of every state has its national, international and historic dimensions. The article explains the criteria of militarism, because those phenomena were typical for a history of some states. First and foremost, backed by the analysis of a dramatic development of the strategic culture of the US during the first decade of the 21st century, the article concludes and explains its core and importance for our contemporary world.

The consequences of economic recession and their impact on national defence budgets can indeed heavily hamper the credibility of both NATO and the EU. A need for coping with budget restrictions and ongoing security crisis in the Ukraine re-opens the issue of common European armed forces as an effective tool for keeping security stability not only in Europe, but also around the world. However, the key issue is to what extent it is feasible to develop autonomous European armed forces operating independently of transatlantic allies, while there is a very strong NATO-EU interconnection in the area of military capability development.

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.

Each officer is obligated to meet his or her qualification requirements, identified in the job description. In order to obtain a required military qualification, officers are usually send to a training course, which is either provided or organized under the auspice of the Ministry of Defence. The discussion within the Armed Forces of the Czech Republic about the system of military courses has been ongoing for the last two decades. Although the system of officers´ development is periodically reviewed, a certain economic paradox still remains. While the number of officers without adequate qualification is not diminishing, at the same time there is a segment of officers who exceed their qualification requirements, but they do not make any progress in their military careers. Despite the situation, these officers are required to take additional training and educational activities.

In September 2011 the government approved the new Security Strategy of the Czech Republic. It was important that this document was discussed and elaborated with the participation of the security community, security professionals both from the army and civil institutions or schools; among others we must state the CEVRO institute or the CESES centre, Charles University Prague. The author familiarizes readers with its contents and the history of its genesis by means of polemics with individual items of this document. In addition to general statements, there should be concrete proposals, the authors supposes, for tangible precautions, which might help readers to comprehend proposed measures, and thus to open way to deeper understanding among wide public to security problems, i.e. impending threats and dangers.

The separatist movements at Ukraine, Crimea annexation, have fundamentally changed today's security surrounding. All that came about were in fact described in the last Russian military doctrine of February 2010, herein the Czech strategic thinking failed, leaving the nation unprepared. The Czech military documents identify threats too broadly, without setting definite opponents. One precondition failed completely, namely a gradual emergence of threats, enabling the Czech Republic to prepare itself. The author explains his own views on current security European affairs and asks to modernize and adjust both Czech defence policy and military science.

The article is in Czech Language only.
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Article analyses the relation between legal and internal regulations and other management acts in public administration, focusing on their own hierarchy, quantity, liability in specific areas of Czech armed forces. The first part was published in Military Review No. 4/2013; this following section focuses on the creation of internal management acts and their releasing for the recipients. The article also emphasizes the need for a stable organization, which is necessary for the effective implementation of personnel management, personnel control and the so-called internal and external legislations.

This paper addresses a gap in the literature relating to the effects and implications of water scarcity and the potential for water wars. The theme has evident military consequences. Experts provide rather pessimistic forecasts about the situation with freshwater on the planet. The early warning models seem to be quite useful as well as early warning conflict indicators. The author deals with the problem from the level of the Czech Republic.

Methodically, presented study comes out of a book by Martin Potůček at al. Studying the Future as a Challenge. Its author offers a comprehensive characteristic of several fundamental challenges to social forecasting. It begins by defining forecasting as the formulation of conditional accounts of possible futures. The main forecasting theme to be solved are as follows: ageing Czech population as a security problem, corruption, criminality, organized crime as a tool of political and economy instability, the marginalization of Czech Armed Forces in context of globalization and overall European defence, possible threat of the collapse of Czech defence system.

The paper is focused on the area of defence sources in the Czech Republic. Within an analysis of the actual situation in military spending in the Czech Republic, some potential approaches are defined to enable the reasonable and transparent allocation of resources for national defence. Based on these approaches, three courses of action are derived in order to deal with current resources inadequacy and instability in defence.

The article is available only in the Czech language. For more information please contact editors.

The life and work of General Dr. Milan Rastislav Štefánik is without doubts the life and work of one of the three leading crisis managers of extraordinary skills operating in an enviroment of first escalating global crisis of the 20th century. The phenomenal result of their activivities was the establishment of the Czechoslovak Republic. The author concludes that Štefánik´s work is timeless, from which we ought to draw a continual inspiration.

NATO's Research and Technology Organization covers six panels dealing with technology. System Analysis and Studies panel drafted a long-term scientific study "Joint Operations 2030" that was performed for three years under the direction of CNAD (Conference of National Armaments Directors). This study identifies system approaches of NATO further development. Its purpose is recommend remedies for eliminating potential defects in future Alliance capabilities, in the frame of anticipated security surrounding and emerging new technologies. The work was divided into five states: evaluating previous studies, evaluating basic potential, setting priorities, new technologies and the last stage evaluated results reached by means of Multinational Exercise. The final version of this document (Final Report) will be released in next half. By joining JO2030 the Czech Republic underlined its resolution to contribute to the advance of NATO defence potential.

The article sums up the evolution of the Czech officers' qualification structure since the start of downsizing in 1990 and provides an outlook beyond 2010. At the early 90's graduate education used to be only for officers. A total of 65 % were holding university degrees. Today this number reaches 98 %, with 3 % holding Ph.D. or CSc. degrees. There is also an increase in numbers of WOs with graduate education, it is 4 %, despite the fact that such qualification is not necessary for them. Authors discuss this evolution and compare it with the ageing of the Czech population and overall academic education system. The gradual decrease of people aged 20-24 till 2020 is an important challenge to reforming recruitment and education of junior officers. The reform is needed to avoid deficits in quality junior officers and consequently the lack of personnel selection for military education at the University of Defence.

The article elaborates local conditions that lead to the fundamental changes in recruitment and preparation system of new army officers. Traditionally, new career officers used to be graduates from military colleges (since 2004 University of Defence). Due to the changes aroused by the transition from conscription to all volunteer forces, Czech military is experiencing increased internal and external pressures on this traditional models of recruitment and preparation. At present, the most visible outcome of this development is severe shortage of junior officers. The combination of internal and external factors (competitive civilian job market) brings the need for expansion of the traditional recruitment models. One of the most promising ways of manning appears to be recruitment of graduates from civilian universities and their subsequent military training at Military Academy in Vyškov.

This concept has been preparing since the early 2009. In short, the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation must be increasingly prepared to intervene far beyond its borders. In the coming decade, NATO will have four central inter-related military missions. The first requirement is to "deter, prevent and defend" against aggression, so as to ensure the political independence and territorial integrity of NATO member states. The report insists on the need to send out military missions beyond the treaty area "when required to prevent an attack on the treaty area or to protect the legal rights and other vital interests of Alliance members". Any expeditionary mission must be based on the principles of the UN charter. Another key item is to cooperate better with those partners, and others worldwide, in order to tackle the new threats posed by cyber attacks, piracy, arms proliferation and energy supply insecurity and climate change. However, in order to achieve the new goals, NATO "must halt the precipitous decline in national defence spending", and to introduce reforms to make spending more efficient.

In October 2008, language knowledge was pretested at the Department of English Language and Literature at the Faculty of Education at the Masaryk University in Brno. The test was developed in accordance with NATO Standardization Agreement 6001 by the examiners of the Defense Language Institute (DLI) of the Czech Army in Vyškov. It covered listening comprehension and reading comprehension tests at SLP 1-2 levels. The tests were organized on behalf of the Department of English Language and Literature by Mgr. Ivana Hrozková and Mgr. Sonia Šamalíková (former Director of DLI Methodology and Testing Department) with a total of 80 students participated in the pretest. The outcomes of such cooperation reiterate the importance of strong ties between both institutions in the field of methodology and testing.

The famous quotation from Moliére that says "Grammar, which knows how to control even kings", implies importance of grammar for everyday use. There are many way of the acquisition of grammar. The best or smartest way of teaching grammar is to memorize rules in sentence contexts to bear them in mind for a longer time, and learn those rules more easily. The authoress presents new ways in teaching grammar, expressed in works by several famous authors, Barton, Birch, Chomsky, Hudson, Larsen-Freeman, Patterson, Pennington, Weaver. Those are: communicative and competitive models, together with systematic and consistent procedures, resulting in highly motivated structure of learning grammar. In the core of this process lies the strong personality of language instructor.

On the one hand, Russia is among the countries which often criticize the Western-led military intervention. On the other hand, in the last twenty years, Russia has repeatedly approved using military force by the West against an individual state, endorsed by the United National Security Council. The main purpose of this article is therefore to describe and analyse Russian position towards four Western military interventions 1999-2011. Specifically, the article is focused on two military interventions without UN Security Council mandates (Federal Republic of Yugoslavia in 1999 and Iraq in 2003), the intervention with the expanded UN Security Council resolution (Afghanistan 2001) and the military intervention that was partially approved by the UN Security Council resolutions (Libya 2011).

At the time of forming the team around a designated defence minister Alexander Vondra, in the early summer 2010, there was no doubt that we need a complex concept document, able to analyze and describe the then situation, to readjust directions and goals for defence department, so that it could stimulate the follow-up transformation of Czech Army. The author, who used to be one of the leading Defence Ministry officials, thus made use of his experiences he gained in NATO structures. He gives an apt, well-founded, and first hand description of key points of this very fresh military history.

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.

Unlike the real state of affairs, the scenarios for Europe 2010 did not presuppose the rise of financial and economy crises. Political scientists did not perceive the series of terrorist attacks, namely in Great Britain, Spain and Russia. Security questions, home security and defence, came to the foreground more then was originally expected. There are hubs of future power blocks of divided Europe. It is impossible to incorporate all the results and consequences of our presuppositions. Since we want to look into individual, particularly interesting developments, the author recommends to create several teams for individual scenarios, instead of drawing several scenarios by one scholarly team.

During the first half of 2010, many Internet sites in the Czech Republic and abroad published a number of alarming articles about the platform, called the European Gendarmerie Force (EUROGENDFOR, EGF). Their authors refer to this unit as the basis for a new "Holy Alliance", when the gendarmerie from one member state will be going to suppress unrests in another member state - if the local task forces refuse to do so. This paper is trying to correct such speculations and summarizes available information about the respective unit.

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

The article analyzes several key conclusions of US National Intelligence Council's study "Global Trends 2030: Alternative Worlds", published in December 2012. Primarily it focuses on: the diffusion of global power influencing political, economic and security development on both global and regional scales; rising importance of the Asia-Pacific region for global economy and security; Sino-American security relations; the role that the United States and Europe should be played in the changing geopolitical reality. The conclusions offer the author's own interpretation of certain development trajectories, based on his earlier published monographs, studies and articles.

The objective of this article is to analyse the security and foreign policy of the Russian Federation in 2008-2012, in terms of security culture. The article is based on the assumption that the Russian security and foreign policy during Medvedev's presidency was characterized by four features: promoting multilateralism, exaggeration Russian national security threats, emphasizing the possibility of the use of nuclear deterrence, and using energy as a political tool. The article is based on three Russian strategic documents, i.e. Foreign Policy Concept of the Russian Federation, National Security Strategy of the Russian Federation to 2020 and the Military Doctrine of the Russian Federation. It also examines some events of Russian internal and external policy, especially Russian-Georgian conflict, Medvedev's proposal to create new security architecture in Europe, or the security relations between Russia and the EU, NATO and the U.S.

The purpose of this text is not a systematic description of preparation, confirmation and implementation of Defence White Paper, nor overall evaluation of its assets or failures. It only wants to draw your attentions to several problem factors that have got complicated the preparing of strategical documents in the field of defence and security in the Czech Republic and in fact they do not allow to form predictable surroundings for defence planning.