Fulltext search in archive

The author explains some terms being neglected in the last few years. War is one of many ways for implementing policy, but actually it is self-breeding and at the same time its own last source. The hypertrophy of available means for warfare creates the atrophy of its functions and consequently even its reason. War is still an extreme choice, bringing about the danger of total devastation of humane environment. It's strange that environmentalists do not put their protests to this centre of gravity. On the contrary, many of them regard wars as natural thing, originated in the very nature of humane dispositions. It has its source probably in the fact that there is no self-contained theory dealing with war and peace, the so-called paxology-the theory how peace can be maintained in the world.

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.

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.

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.

This treatise is a follow-up to an article by the same author in Military Review No. 2, 2012, dealing with legal and illegal war after 1990. Now the author concentrates on another key question: the legitimacy and the unlawfulness of force deployments in internationalrelations. The paper is grounded on fundamental works by the former Australian foreign secretary Gareth Evans, setting international rules or criteria determining when it is right to fight. The effectiveness of the global security system is not only on the legality of its security decisions, military actions, but the common perception of their legitimacy-whether they are made on solid evidentiary grounds, for the right reasons, morally as well as legally.

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.

After the year 1990 a total of 120 wars have taken place. The most appealing were those initiated by the USA, in which other friendly states´ve participated as well. No country has the right to invade its neighbour or over-run and annex another. There were many discussions in the world over the legacy of imposed interventions, under which conditions they are true and just. The study covers two dissimilar attitudes: the first one against Hussein's expansionist policy in 1991 and warfare after 9/11 2001. The legitimacy rests upon Resolutions of the United Nations Security Council that allow any nation to remove the aggressor by force. The author also mentions a series of wars, fought throughout the former Yugoslavia from 1991 to 1995, and then again from 1998 until 1999/2001.

The material for his paper the author draws on his experience from work in Reconnaissance and Electronic Warfare Department. In light of historical consequences, the article briefly describes the development of mobile sets for geospatial support. The main focus was paid to currently used stations SOUMOP (O) and SGEOB. He also mentions presently developed prototype GeMoZ-C. The author would like to familiarise our reading public with activities of Czech Army Geographic Service, its tools and devices in use.

This article describes the question of CBRN and their possible abuses in civil aviation. The problem includes security analysis identified by the Civil Aviation as the most significant class of this group-biological agents. The authors pay them special attention. The second part of paper contains model situation in case of emergency: virus variola (smallpox) attack in a terminal of medium-size international airport. Depending on the detailed properties of virus, transport hub and afflicted area, there are two versions of attack- for summer and winter timetable, according to expected progress of virus extension, and follow-up arrangements.

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.

The purpose of this comprehensive study is to describe organizational scheme inside defence sector and recollect some more or less neglected rules of its organizational structure. This paper ought to confute some of the myths that are repeatedly used for advancing somebody's particular interests, frequently opposing to smooth running defence sector and its subordinate elements, their performances and duties. The author's prime motive is to explain this problem to a wide public and thus contribute to opening the discussion on this theme, well in advance, before the measurements originated in the White Paper on Defence would be put forward and implemented by some proposers, backed by subjective misconceptions and interpretations of actual state of affairs.

Studies of the importance of culture have gained greater attention in the post-Cold War era. In present world, there are many fenomena that can't be explained in terms of neorealism. There is the consensus in national security policy studies that culture may significantly affect grand strategy and state behaviour. It limits behavioural choices, from which we could derive predictions about our strategic choice. This study is based among others upon Johnston's strategic culture concept related to three generations. The study is divided into five parts: at first the author introduces general concept of strategic culture, the second, third and fourth parts correspond to individual generations. In closing part the author explains his own understanding to this concept.

Dietary habits and nutritional conditions are closely tied. They were measured and tested during academic semester, namely in time of examination. Results reached were analyzed. Statistics proved our assumption that during the exam period this study burden deeply influenced overall nutritional state by anthropometrical indicators in male clusters; with 95% rate probability it influenced body mass, body fat and the percentage of water in a body. Zero hypothesis was confirmed as far as muscle material was evaluated.

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.

It is the title of homonymous publication by Jan Eichler from the Institute of Foreign Relations. The author depicts basic characteristics of main features of security and strategic culture of present world. He tries to answer the following three questions: What are historical and political factors of security /strategical culture of respective actors, what are main features of their doctrinal documents, and their impacts on the development of global international relations in the early 21st century? He deduces that the participation of the CR in military interventions in third world countries could generate a risk of terrorist's attacks against not only members of armed forces abroad, but also installations in our state territory.

After several years of service with armour corps he devoted himself to social organizations in the forces, among others he was a head of department for military youth. In 1968 he became a deputy Czech minister for youth, PT and sports. During period of normalization he was released from the army. He made his living as a free lance translator and author. After the Velvet Revolution in 1989 he became advisor to deputy defence minister for humanitarian affairs, later he became assistant to deputy defence minister for strategical control, deputy director of Institute for Strategic Studies, deputy director of Institute of International Relations. After his untimely death, the prize named after him for works in the field of defence was established.

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.

Our new stance to comprehensive control of security in the international context is based upon the so-called "wider security concept". Despite various definitions,there is the consensus that a national state is not the only security subject, the classical paradigm was extended to other areas, outside military one: political, economy, financial, banking, environmental, and social. They are endorsed by security problems related to technology, energy, raw material sources, ethnical disputes, religion, together with humane rights and cultural aspects. To win the war is easy, to establish peace is difficult. Last but not least, we now have to fight and win the war of public opinion.

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.

This paper depicts the position of the Czech President as the head of state and the commander-in-chief of the Czech Armed Forces, including his special relation to Defence Minister who actually runs defence department. The President is superior to all members of armed forces of the Czech Republic; the Chief of General Staff is superior to all members of the Army of the Czech Republic.The President formally and officially controls all the military organizations in a country. But we have no tradition of independent of armed deployment in war conflicts. Our forces operated always as a part of higher multinational coalitions, in joined combined groupings, operationally subordinated to friendly, but alien highest command.

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.

In our country, existing strategical documents related to security used to be compiled very carefully, but proved to be not very effective, as they did not fit to practical everyday security policy, they did not comply with day-to-day requirements. The only exception was the 1991 doctrine dealing with the creation of Integrated Rescue System and the implementation of professional armed forces. At present, there is a tendency to rewrite those strategy documents again, namely in the field of security. The preparation of a new version of Czech security strategy is taking place in time marked with new trends in world politics and economy. The main attention is attracted by crisis management, arms control, disarmament, WMD non-proliferation, cooperation with non-NATO nations, and international organizations, last but not least counterterrorism and cyberspace security strategy. In short the study mentions Czech political-military ambitions, defence strategy, defence capacity and resources, it appreciates in value knowledge gained by the Centre of Security Policy, Faculty of Social Science, Charles University Prague, and it contains conclusions and recommendations for the preparation the 2011 Czech National Security Strategy.

The article is focused on the Czech military bases during mission abroad and introduces new term "Life Cycle of Military Base". Every system has its own successive stages through which it passes; concept that compares the cyclical nature of organizations, systems, is called life cycle. The Reach-Back concept divides lifetime of the military base into seven phases: Assignment (task, goals), Preparation, Proposal (draft), Designing, Building, Running and Cancelling. The definition and description of all phases of the Life Cycle of Military Bases is an important contribution to solving series of problems connected with designing, building, running and cancelling of military bases during mission abroad. Dividing into separate sections contributes to the well-mastered supervision of base, as it indicates factual structures of individual stages of daily routine of the base and thus it lowers the risks of neglecting some activities.

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.

An article in the Vojenské rozhledy magazine triggered an argument over the importance cash-flow planning for the application of 3E-methodology at the Czech MoD in 2004. Today's study re-opens this argument again, but on the background of the modernization of Czech state finance management and the implementation of a modern cash-flow management into the Czech public finance, under the authority of Finance Ministry. Those processes profoundly affected the economic policy of the MoD, granting more responsibility and economic independence. MoD is allowed to formulate, administer and control its own financial policy to reach higher cost-effectiveness. But does the ministry really become a better financial manager? This article deals with fiscal years 2004-2007.

Academic year 2006-2007 gave rise to Continuous Assessment Project prepared by the Centre of Language Preparation Brno. The project is concentrated on monitoring study results in English language with the aim to make teaching process more effective, so that the students could meet required levels SLP 3333, NATO STANAG 6001. The research was conducted within Faculty of Economy and Management and Faculty of Military Technologies. Because of specific situation at Faculty of Military Medicine, the research was not done here. The authors offer comparison of two study classes of Defence University, collected by means of questionnaire method. The results reached are illustrated upon several accompanying tablets. But more generalized results could be concluded at the end of winter semester / academic year 2008-2009 respectively, when officer candidates pass final English exams.