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Operation Serval (French: Opération Serval) is an ongoing French military operation in the Republic of Mali, West Africa. The aim of the operation is to oust Islamic militants in the north of Mali, who had begun a push into the centre of Mali. Operation Serval follows the Security Council Resolution 2085 of 20 December 2012. The operation is named after the medium-sized African wildcat species Serval. The author analyzes historic and geopolitical context, including activities of AQMI terrorists. The Serval Operation is of dissymmetric character. At the rear of advancing French troops some groups of rebels and terrorist stayed to make acts of sabotage. According to the author it is necessary to prevent from long-term involving into the conflict, among others, as French territory or territories of other countries might become a target of terrorist attacks.

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.

Russia's actions in the Ukraine have changed the security situation in the Baltic region, which makes NATO's long-term presence in Latvia essential for the Latvian Republic. The impacts of Russian actions on Latvian defence policy are discussed in the paper by Mr Janis Berzinš,Managing Director of the Centre for Security and Defence Research, National Defence Academy of Latvia, in Policy Paper, No. 2, 2014. It is a new way of intervention, new-generation warfare, without the employment of armed combats, using mostly influence and coercion, by means of covert operations. Abridged and adapted. The original English text is available at http://www.naa.mil.lv/~/media/NAA/AZPC/Publikacijas/PP%2002-2014.ashx. Even though the study came into being in April 2014, the editors regard it worthy to be published, being timeless and with general validity.

This polemics is written by Prof. Fr. Ochrana, both reader and author of the Military Review quarterly. It is a response to the article in No 4, 2013, by Vl. Karaffa, editorial board chairman. Prof. Ochrana generally supports his conclusions concerning the further survival of this Czech Military Review. According to him, the review has indispensable role in the spectrum of both civilian and military professional journals. He recommends to evaluate the problem of its existence upon the principles of cost/benefit analysis, with regard to the so-called socials costs, the key steps of which he enumerates.

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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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.

Career education of the Ministry of Defence (MoD) personnel is a key component to meet requirements for qualifications. As these requirements are career growth conditions for career personnel, they are inherently connected with further promotion in rank. The MoD Concept of Personnel Development for 2012-2018 sets the direction of the educational development to achieve these qualification requirements. During the process of preparation of the career courses it was revealed that some system changes should be made due to implemented or planned changes within the legislative and source framework of the Ministry of Defence.This article describes the proposal of a new concept for training of personnel in the career courses. It was prepared by a project team headed by the Centre for Security and Military Strategic Studies at the Defence University. The article also shows the development of the situation since 2004, when the professionalization of the Armed Forces of the Czech Republic occurred.

NATO has been permanently adapting to new outside and inside challenges. Lisbon summit in 2010 is one of the very important milestones in this transformation endeavour. Since 2010, the Alliance has embarked on meaningful structural reforms with the aim to enhance effectiveness, improve efficiency of all NATO entities and make the Alliance fit for its purpose. The main objective of this article is to introduce the scope of NATO reforms and their expected outcomes. Furthermore, this article will assess real achievements and draw at least some lessons from a reform implementation process in order to establish best practice in reforming complex organisations.

Článek je shrnutím výsledků řešení projektu obranného výzkumu STRUKTURA: Tvorba modulárních struktur úkolových uskupení pro celé spektrum operací a jejich ověřování s využitím tvorby koncepcí a experimentování - CD&E. Je zaměřen na objasnění problematiky definování modulů jako základního prvku modularity a možné přístupy k výběru hodnocení a formování modulárních úkolových uskupení. Cílem článku je pojednat o možnostech tvorby úkolových uskupení a generování sil v podmínkách definovaných a popsaných scénářů. Hlavní části článku vymezují determinanty organizace modulárních struktur a jejich popis.

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 article defines extremisms and terrorism as eventual destabilizing moments in society. The paper decomposes possible reasons and grounds of their manifestation, the authors point out that certain signs indicate the penetration of extremisms and terrorism into armed forces structures and civil service, by means of concrete persons. At the end they propose general rules and approaches to keep up this topical phenomenon of the present day.

Factors such as distance, destination, deployment demands, duration, represent key elements to determine logistics requirements. The EU BG concept necessitates considerable strategic air/sea lift and combat support capabilities, since EU battle groups are to be able to be deployed almost anywhere in the world, primarily in Africa. They have to deploy both troops and materiel simultaneously to its mission areas. Strategic airlift is the fastest way of deploying troops over long distance. The main challenge for the EU is therefore availability giant airplanes. A lack of suitable European transport crafts in EBalabáuropean airlift fleet is the Achilles heel to the EU BG Concept. The problem is that all aircraft available have only limited payload capacities and flying range. Although deploying by sea is more time consuming than deploying by air, EU member states have more ships available for strategic sea transport. The strict deployment deadline set down in the EU BG Concept means that ships and crews will have to be held at very high readiness.

The article deals with controlling implementation into the mechanism of central institutions and state administrative management of the CzechRepublic (CR), hereinafter state administration. The purpose of this article is to present state administration controlling as an effective control tool, backed by best experiences and practice in the Germany. The authors explain and determine theoretical bases and circumstances to put controlling into practice. They comment the effecitivity of controlling implementation in Czech state administration, using as an example the Defence Ministry of the CR.

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.

In the middle of Obama's first presidency, several waves of criticism turned up. According to some analysts, Barrack Obama's first presidency introduces the beginning of new world's era, the so-called "post-ethnical society". The latest discussions prove that the United States have been no longer the only world's superpower, they will remain in the position of world's leader, but still aregoing to substantionally influence global arrangement. Unsuccessful and protracted wars, reflecting serious economic depression with successive debts, effect military budget cuts, even though the American Armed forces are still powerful, potent and mighty power, all around the world, influencing word's events as a stabilising force. The study depicts political and security layout against American domestic political background.

The paper presents reflections over the issue of armed forces capabilities. It is a phenomenon much discussed and written earlier, namely from the point of its building, estimation and development. Nevertheless the question is whether practical experiences are backed by theory fundamentals. Now we have a chance to introduce the live theory of quality management [1] into this specific and frequented military problem. The article is a polemic consideration over possibilities of introducing capabilities management into command and control capabilities system in armed forces.

The control of emergency economic measures, namely state material reserves, is an important part of Czech security system. From the institutional point of view, all is run under the authority of a central institution-the Administration of State Material Reserves (ASMR). This paper deals with its role in the management of state material reserves, reflects problems and consequences resulting from the changes in security surrounding, re-evaluates opinions and views both by experts of state administrations and academic community. Those are the main key questions the study seeks an answer.

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.

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 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.

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).

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.

Article analyzes the relation between legal and internal regulations and acts in public administration focusing on their hierarchy, quantity, liability in specific area of armed forces. There is wide range and amount of relatively autonomous service regulations and official channels (internal orders, guidelines, advices). Although any internal regulations have to be in accordance with superior sources of law, relation between legal and internal level is not clear. Article exemplary outlines, that consistent system of internal rules is based especially on running and immediate updates to meet harmony with legal code.

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.

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 article identifies new threats of global character influencing global security and quality of life. The inspiration is drawn from the debate over proposed updated Czech security strategy 2011, where several security scenarios were drafted. It is a free sequel to the study "Wild Cards in Future Development of World Security" published in this review in No. 2, 2008. The titles of some chapters are as follows: The Collapse of World's Monetary System and Global Economic Warfare, Crisis of Global Government, The Shortage of Key Commodities (oil, gas, coal, raw materials, water, foodstuffs), Migration, Organized Crime, European Union prior to Disintegration, The Crisis of NATO, New Religions, Will Rich People Live Longer?, etc.

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.

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.