Fulltext search in archive

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 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.

In this article the author thinks over one of many variants the mortar units could be deployed into battalion combat task forces to support developing operations. It is a process of gradual compatibility with the units of North Atlantic Alliance and modernizing mortar weapons system with regard to prospective personnel reductions. It is important for joint commanders to be familiar with this kind of combat support, so that they could use it effectively in land operations.

The purpose of this article is to inform on elements of military deception in NATO armies and overarching principles that make military deception successful. Deception Planning is an iterative process that should be considered as an inextricable part of the operational planning. The knowledge in the field of military deception in the Czech military is low; no operational deception plan has been prepared for foreign operations or any military exercise. Deception is widely appreciated as a powerful instrument of military operations, yet it is surprisingly neglected by both the Czech Army and Military Educational System. The author tries to encourage officers and members of higher staffs to study this subject.

This paper deals with the activities of the Armed Forces of the Czech Republic, under national command on its own territory, with the emphasis to the activities of civil-military cooperation (CIMIC) components. It puts stress on the issue of forces operations, those of CIMIC units in particular, within the Integrated Rescue System, during crisis situations, i.e. natural disasters, environmental accidents, etc. The paper comes out from the tasks defined by the Defence White Paper. Those tasks are compared with the legislation in effect, and the authors make some inquiries about suitable measures to implement them. Unlike missions carried out abroad, the CIMIC problems and tasks in ACR operations on home territory are nearly untouched. The paper aims to open discussion over this topic, among others, because our current relevant legislation is obsolete.

Armed forces, civilian employees, are extremely exposed to unwanted effects of socially undesirable behaviour, as they live and meet their assignments under difficult conditions, e.g. in mission abroad, separated from their relatives, spouses, wives. The best deterrence against socially undesirable behaviour is its prevention. Legally this problem is defined in the Defence Minister Order No 53/2010, The Prevention of Socially Undesirable Behaviour. According to the author M. Hrbata, Deputy Defence Minister for Personnel, we must deal with this problem in a multidisciplinary manner, in the frame of effective organizational structure, run by competent commanders, chiefs, directors, with natural authority.

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.

The article follows the leading theme of the Czech Military Review No. 2/2013 dealing with the application White Paper on Defence 2011. Both authors are members of the Lifelong Learning Department, Defence University, Brno. Backed by long experiences in military professional education and training, they present their views on advantages and disadvantages of the current model of officers' professional preparation, particularly senior officers. The authors' aim is to arouse a constructive debate about the changes in the current model of senior officers' career education. Their views are based upon history examples and models of some selected NATO nations.

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 a polemic reflection over the potential concept and vision of defence and EU combined armed forces, from the military point of view. It recalls previous efforts and present activities to implement common security and defence policy in practice. It is a short analysis of conditions under which the EU is situated, and in general contours it characterizes possible advantages of common European armed forces. It expresses author's opinion that by forming "European Pillar" in NATO, the transatlantic linkage between the EU and the USA will not be weakening, but on the contrary, it will be strengthen. The author uses the terms "European army" and "common armed forces of EU" that he takes as synonyms and therefore he asks the reader to take this fact in account.

The disintegration of the republic and the following army dissolution can't be prevented. As both nations were of higher cultural level, the process proceeded cultivable. The overall situation in the forces was better than in civil spheres, because military was formed as a federal army, and servicemen acted and thought in a federal way. They did not support state disintegration, but on the other side they did not prevent it. The authors composed the paper with strategical approach to problems, only partly paid attention to political, legislative, organizational, and personal matters. Intentionally they missed mechanic matters, e.g. the division state property, a total of 418 milliard Czechoslovak crowns.

This article deals with new methods able to establish the change of initial projectile velocity, caused by barrel attrition within the artillery of the Army of the Czech Republic. After the evaluation of current situation with the use of the device for measuring the loading depth, this article recommends to implement the muzzle velocity sensor or to establish the change of initial projectile velocity, caused by barrel attrition, taking into account and using the clarifying correction.

The paper briefly identified the long-time objectives of overall geospatial support. Based on that, ways ahead to achieve main aims are described. Special attention is paid to software platform for geospatial production, cooperation with civilian and international partners, legal aspects, R&D as well as mobile sets intended usage.

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.

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

One of main task while preparing new security documents is to identify, analyze and evaluate newly emerging, self-generating security threats. They menace cybernetic, economy, bank, and religious security. The special menace, as for inner security it is lobbyism. Cybernetic threat is today regarded as more dangerous than nuclear strike. The American lived through those experiences in Iraq. Another example is cyber attacks on Estonia in 2007 that swamped websites of Estonian organizations, including Estonian parliament, banks, ministries, newspapers and broadcasters.The attacks triggered a number of military organisations around the world (including NATO) to reconsider the importance of network security to modern military doctrine. There is a paradigm: the more modern country, the more risks are opened. The situation is complicated by the fact that in sophisticated society there is hard to identify attacking enemy. The author underlines that we are the last member nation in the EU that has no official CSIRT (Computer Security Incident Response Team) to react cyber /terrorist attracts.

The basic orientation in the field of military art demands at least elementary knowledge of military history and understanding to military strategy influence on the art of war. The questions tied to understanding military strategy and its influence on the preparation and conducting military operations are part of study programmes of all life education at the Defence University. The purpose of this article, dedicated to military strategy problems, is deeper understanding to its basic connections, understanding a direction the strategy took in a designated period and its development. I ought to explain in short its role and attitude towards the nature of military operations.

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

This article suggests to introduce a new method of compilation and distribution of meteorological messages in the ACR artillery. The proposed realization mode of is based on the expected course of air temperature during the day. It is compared with the existing regular two-hour intervals that affect effectively the fluctuations of air temperature during the day, especially at sunrise and sunset. Consequently, the study also recommends to adjust the time and space validity of individual types of meteorological messages in the connection with this proposed realization mode of compilation and distribution of meteorological messages.

The organizational structures are to define and effectively make plans for humane activities (individuals and groups) to meet set objectives. In the Army of the Czech Republic, the organizational structures have to fulfil goals not only on tactical levels, but also it has to connect to superior units. It must be clearly defined on both horizontal and vertical levels. The article is focused on differences in organizational structures of logistics support of some battalions and that of brigade. It compares competences, respective responsibilities, in the area of material management, operations support, etc. The aim of the article is to propose an alternative solution, backed by above-mentioned comparison, for further possible evolution of logistics organizational structures, including professional training and career development of logistics members.

The paper offers new looks at the system of railroad reconstruction in crisis and emergency situations. It originates from The Operational Plan of State Territory Preparation that is implemented in harmony with The Plan of Technology Protection of Railroad. This article is a free sequel to information published in this Military Revue No. 4/2005 dealing with drafting the plan of railroad technology protection. The authors´ main purpose is to give readers basic knowledge on key changes in railroad security system and main security measurements till 2013. The protection system is intended to be more flexible and economic.

In 2007 and 2010, this Czech Military Review Vojenské rozhledy published several articles, discussing analytical thinking and analytical methodologies in the field of military intelligence. The authors among others mentioned the methodology ACH, Analysis of Competing Hypotheses. The methodology is not suitable only for intelligence, but it can be used further for solving a variety of military decision-making problems. The article in its first part describes ACH philosophy, including some academic considerations both by supporters and critics to this methodology. The second part demonstrates an example of its implementation and usage during support other problems tied with decision-making in defence planning process. The method is simple to explain, but difficult to introduce to real practice. The article explains both the theory and modifications of ACH and underlines some pitfalls connected with putting methodology into practice.

The article deals with some aspects of military art in connection with the forthcoming Doctrine of the Army of the Czech Republic. Its aim is to contribute to discussion on the issue of operational art and highlight the major benefits in military terminology. The author describes some specific doctrinal terms and briefly suggests their possible application during the planning and conduct of military operations.