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The French "Centre de Doctrine d'Emploi des Forces" (CDEF) has published new doctrine FT-05 The Tactical Commander's Guide to Command and Control in Operations. The global action of land forces is now carried out within a strategic environment that has dramatically changed for 15 years. In this new environment, the French Army asserts and implements a double requirement: that of power and the control of force. The article presents the fundamental conclusions of this doctrine and compares them with the Czech national doctrinal documents. Author concludes that in comparison with the French doctrine, Czech doctrines are much more focused on the procedural and technological part of the Command and Control Systems than the ability of commanders to command.

The article deals with the preparation of the Active Reserve of Czech Armed Forces, territorial forces in detail. It compares them to the equivalent of the active reserves of the Polish army, namely the Territorial Defense troops. A comparison of the development and preparation of these forces points to the necessity of solving or updating the system of calling up reserves of the Czech Armed Forces, their training, arming and equipping.

The article deals with the process of identification of competencies for commanders in leading units in military operations. The used methodology based on combined approach founded on selected competency rosters and its further modification seemed to be relevant and applicable in the Czech Armed Forces conditions. Military officer's profiles anchored in the EU Commission Database for Armed Forces and in the EU Sectoral Qualifications Framework for Military Officer Profession have been proven as the most relevant frameworks of competencies. Both are formulated and structured to be as generic as possible for all officers regardless of their specialization. They were established on current theories and incorporate extensive amount of entries from various national sources. The resulting list of 24 generic competencies, selected from a total of 69 competencies analyzed, represents a possible example of a set of requirements imposed on the Czech Armed Forces officers.

The book Paradigms of Military Tactics, compiled by Pavel Zůna, deals with the principles of fighting at the tactical level on more than 300 pages.

Defence strategies of smaller NATO states represent interesting source of information about defence policies of this pool of countries. Definition of what constitutes "small state" is discussed in first step. In second step, this study compares 10 selected NATO countries Defence Strategies in terms of identified risks and threats, future military capabilities to counter threats, processes of drafting defence papers, level of details and approving authorities. Outlining these indicators and characteristics provide useful overview for future draft of National defence strategies within countries of similar size.

This study presents the perspective of Czechoslovak diplomacy on the events of the Yom Kippur War (1973) in the context Czechoslovak foreign policy towards the Arab-Israeli conflict in early 1970s. The research is based on so far rather underexplored archival sources. Despite Czechoslovakia's declared unequivocal support for the Arab side of the conflict, Czechoslovak Middle Eastern policy since the mid-1950s was not entirely unconditional in relation to the Arab countries. Internal documents of Czechoslovak government occasionally revealed criticisms of Arab representatives. The Yom Kippur War represented a significant moment in this regard, as it was a military confrontation initiated not by Israel but by the Arab coalition, posing a challenge for Czechoslovak propaganda. Simultaneously, this armed conflict presented an opportunity for Communist Czechoslovakia to further deepen its relations with its Arab allies.

Existing research about China and Taiwan deals primarily with bilateral relations, military doctrines, etc. They don't pay much attention to the consequences of the potential China-Taiwan war. The article examines conditions for emerging and activity of guerillas with paramilitant signs in the case of China's domination over Taiwan. The analysis is based on the present general, socio-economic, political, geographical, and technological environment. A substantial part of the analysis is also argumentation about the potential of urban guerilla. The article is based on data, pieces of information, polls and academic and analytical texts relevant to the main research questions. Those questions are the potential for emerging, sustainability, and effectiveness of guerilla. The article comes with findings, that argue the relatively high potential for the emergence of guerilla primarily because of the suitable environment in Taiwan and possible effectiveness and sustainability based on existing variables, which can however also limit this potential.

The article deals with Turkey's trust in the USA as its most important ally in NATO. Semi-structured interviews with Turkish academics and international relations experts during field research identified three main areas of Turkish mistrust in the USA - the Cyprus question, USA support for the PYD/YPG in Syria, and USA intervention in Turkish politics. The research results presented in the causal network show that the main cause of Turkish mistrust towards the USA is the factors leading to the phenomenon of fear of abandonment. That causes Turkey's increased need for independence from strategic partners and the subsequent increase in the application of a balance policy. The study concludes that one of the main reasons for Turkey's current attitude towards NATO is the need to ensure its security, and this need stems from Turkey's mistrust of the USA.

The article focuses on the concept of crowdsourcing in the social networking environment as a new phenomenon involving civilians in the intelligence process, enabling the use of their intelligence potential during armed conflict. Crowdsourcing of the civilian population is introduced by the example of NATO intervention during the first civil war in Libya. The article presents its use during the intelligence process at the strategic-operational level of command and control of the armed forces. It establishes its possible definition as a collection method of the intelligence process, and as a collection method which is disjunctively separable from similar intelligence collection methods.

With the running changes in methods of modern operations within NATO framework, there are also changes in demands and tasks in the scope of civil-military operations-CIMIC. They are incorporated in many documents, such as the Comprehensive Political Guidance, New Concept of Civil-Military Cooperation or Field Manual 3-07 Stability Operations. The CIMIC capacities ought to be used for active impact on impending security situation, crisis development, impact implemented more sooner then crises might escalate to conflicts, eventually they could be used to halt the conflicts, in the places where they are a threat to Alliance security. We must create new rules of co-operations between civil and military sections, with the use of Alliance materials, resources and documents from conferences, seminars and field working shops. Today we have also abundant experiences that the Army of the Czech Republic, its CIMIC section, have acquired in preceding ten years.

The article attempts to make a historical review of leadership theories and, on this basis, to derive their approximate systematization. The article emphasizes the importance of the phenomenon of leadership as a major factor in the management of human resources and security in human societies. The exposition goes through the various leadership theories that have existed to date. The research methodology includes etymological analysis, historical analysis, content analysis, the methods of induction and deduction, reveals logical connections and dependencies between related and similar concepts and phenomena.

Based on the content analysis method, this study analyzes the first ever published security strategy of the Israel Defense Forces, which was published in 2015. The main objective of the paper is not only to present the circumstances of its creation and discuss the main objectives of this strategic security document, but also to outline the broader geopolitical context from which it emerged. The authors argue that the document primarily emphasized two areas - the use of force and capacity building of the Israeli military. Among other things, the publication of the strategy was intended to have a deterrent effect. In the conclusion, the authors compare the Gideon Plan and its follow-up, the Tnufa Plan, and point to the considerable importance that consensus among political and military elites has in the implementation of such a document and reflect on what lessons and inspiration can be drawn from this case in our geographic space in the process of formulating or reformulating strategic security documents.

The war game is a respected tool for commanders' decision-making. Its preparation, execution, and evaluation of results require precise organization and a considerable time commitment. However, the time aspect is a limiting factor in the current dynamic era to a rather objectified evaluation of the variants of operation execution. The article does not describe the process of wargame preparation, it focuses on the execution phase, where it presents the use of a particular simulation system in wargames and under which theoretical conditions the results of combat simulation can be considered valid. It also evaluates the time efficiency of its use in a wargame. It has been experimentally verified that the tested simulation system can be used for a wargame especially in the accelerated simulation mode. The configuration of the computing system was also verified, which allowed a substantial acceleration of the simulation run of the wargame scenario.

This study provides a summary overview of the creation and the activities of the international security architecture in the form of their two main pillars, i.e. the United Nations and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization in the Near and Middle East region. Within the framework of international security relations, this is a very unstable and conflictual region, where this instability has lasted practically since the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948. The global UN, its overall activity and importance, especially humanitarian and peace-building activities not only for the Near and Middle East region, is very beneficial, through out the Cold War period up to the present day. As a security organization, NATO is among the most important global actors influencing current international security relations. Through their activities, both of these organizations represent a essential means of ensuring world peace and security.

The aim of this article is to define leadership as a process required in the Czech Armed Forces. To this end, the nature of military leadership is first identified by analyzing similarities and differences of the widely accepted theoretical concepts (schools) of leadership, including approaches used in selected alliance armed forces. Based on the current state of affairs analysis, the components of leadership and the relationship among them are identified, as well as general conditions for their application. In accordance with the knowledge gained, a general leadership model of the Army of the Czech Republic is proposed.

Recently the defence department has been meeting lower and lower money sources that could finally bring about lower salaries, reduction in numbers of servicemen, dozens of military units are dissolved. One of such economic measures are plans for dismantling the last Military Secondary School (MSS ) in the Czech Republic. Backed by the assessment of expenses or inputs and outputs, stated in several tablets, the authoresses evaluate the abolition of MSS from a long-term view as rather ineffective, in spite of some short-time savings.

The annual examination is an integral part of the physical training system of a soldier of the Army of the Czech Republic, which assesses his physical fitness. This assessment provides dual feedback - it informs examinees of how they are performing against normative tables and each other, and at the same time, gives commanders an idea of the current physical fitness of their subordinates. This thesis focuses on the endurance event of the 12-minute run (also known as the Cooper test). Based on data from 2011 to 2021 and nearly 50,000 evaluated tests, the potential effects of age on soldiers' physical performance and appropriate adjustments to individual age limits were examined. The analysis showed that the difficulty setting for achieving the same rating differs for both genders and that there is a different decline in physical performance with increasing age than reflected in current norms. Based on these analyses, a proposal for modifications to the annual physical training test was developed and is appended to this paper.

The article is based on a study carried out as part of the Long-Term Organizational Development Plan project by the Center for Security and Military-Strategic Studies of the University of Defense entitled "Armed Conflict". As part of the study, the issue of strategic surprise was analyzed and assessed, the aim of which was to find causal mechanisms and connections between the security of state defense and the phenomenon of surprise in the conditions of the 21st century. The article deals with the issue of surprise and its impact on state defense security. It describes strategic surprise as a principled aspect with implications and impacts on state defense. It examines the issue of surprise as a principle of military art in the context of contemporary strategic thinking.

Current War in Ukraine represents conventional conflict of high intensity unparallel in contemporary European history. Using a qualitative method, authors present character of the war and identify its key specifics through multi-domain optics. A preliminary set of recommendations is derived from these results for the national defense capability of Czech Republic. Authors conclude that both State and the Armed Forces must increase their readiness for the large-scale conflict.

The article presents more than ten years of experience in testing the abilities of pilots during flight control on flight simulators. A hypothesis is stated about the possibilities of finding common features in flight control, the basic mathematical apparatus for evaluation is presented, the flight simulators used and, of course, the achieved results are presented. 110 pilots have already been tested and a total of 2360 missions - test flights - have been simulated. Subsequent mathematical analysis provided approximately 40,000 results suitable for further statistical processing. This amount of data obtained from realistically simulated flights provides a prerequisite for defining applicable conclusions to the proposed mortgages. For the needs of subsequent certification, a proposal for the pile measurement methodology was also prepared, which summarizes both the theoretical approach to pile testing and the procedure for carrying out tests on individual simulators. Part of the proposed methodology includes an overview of the software created to facilitate the recording of data from individual missions, as well as software for own analysis of the measured data from the missions.

The article deals with the evaluation of military expenditures of European Union's four selected countries in the period of 2001-2008. Among examined countries belong the Czech Republic, Austria, Slovakia and Slovenia. The term military expenditures is used by many users, so the article defines first this term and also sources from which the authoress collected data for evaluation. The main source of statistical data about military expenditures is the Stockholm international institute, namely its research yearbooks.

The article brings a comparison of the approaches to the strategic defence analysis (SDA) and developing future Defence Concepts (DFDC) of the Czech Republic and Norway. The countries are in a different geopolitical situation, NOR being a country with borders that are part of the outer border of the Alliance, the Czech Republic being a country surrounded by three member countries of the Alliance and one PfP country. On the basis of the comparison of the two approaches, the authors identified differences and common points of the two. Based on the findings, the discussion provides inspiration for possible enhancements in the approach of the Czech Republic to SDA to ensure the future defence of the country. All that in context of current Security developments in Europe, that have an impact on how NATO member countries might deal with Article 3 and Article 5 of the Washington Treaty.

The article is based on the positions of neo-realism, namely in the works by S. Walt and J. Mearsheimer. It characterizes the key actors of the war in Ukraine, which is a result of a long-term geopolitical competition between the USA and RF in the Black Sea region. The NATO enlargement in the area is classified as a non-coercive Expansion by Invitation (articulated by the elites of the former member states of the USSR and Warsaw Pact), which has provoked growing irritation of Russian political and military elites and the following hybrid war with dramatic international consequences. Last but not least, the article analyses military incidents and resulting security threats and challenges.

The article concerns the issue of arson attacks in Israel.The issue of terrorism in Israel is quite broad, given that it is a very common phenomenon here and Israel deals with terrorism on a daily basis. The paper therefore focuses on incendiary balloons, a weapon that repeatedly caused fires around the Gaza Strip between 2018-2023. It examines their history, their design, outlines the possibilities of their elimination, the advantages and disadvantages of possible technical solutions, and a reflection on the future of their usage.

The aim of this study was to create an overview of the Czech Armed Forces' development in approach to environmental protection from 1989 to 2022. Using the methods of analysis, synthesis and comparison of the Czech, EU´s and NATO´s environmental legislation, we created a comprehensive and previously unpublished overview of environmental protection within the Czech Armed Forces. Found outputs were set into illustrations depicting the activities in the environmental field with internal links between civil legislation, EU's requirements, and NATO's policy in chronological order. We conclude that the year 2000 represents a key milestone from which the approach to environmental protection have stagnated. Among the reasons for the stagnation, we identify commanders' concerns about "green approach" to troop training and the lack environmental education within defence department.

Most experts believe that urban operations will gain importance in the future, but even though we have sufficient examples and experience at hand, we still struggle with the development of the necessary skills and capabilities. The resulting gaps are a combination of different tasking and shrinking resources in the past decades, the difficulty of training for and a mere misunderstanding of the urban environment and harmful innovations - we seem to find ourselves always in the beginning. Fighting in isolated "prisms of responsibility" requires flexible task forces with all necessary enablers at hand and well-trained commanders exercising mission command and understanding their role, task, and the purpose of action. Mastering the urban environment on all three levels of movement is a very challenging task and requires focused attention on various aspects, inter-actor interaction and interdisciplinary research and development. The development of a methodology suitable for looking into the hidden aspects and contextualizing them with current activities and future developments is key to capability development.

The article deals with the method of application of evaluation tools, applicable for the evaluation of the preparedness assessment of undeclared headquarters and units of the Czech Armed Forces. As a part of the research there were analysed the approaches of the Czech Republic and NATO using of a comparative analysis supplemented by a structured interview. The results of the research confirmed the inconsistent approach to the application of standardized tools and methods for evaluation of units, which are not declared for the NATO and the EU Task Forces. Based on the results of the analysis and with the utilization of the best practice approaches, there was formulated an innovative approach to assessment of the required capabilities of all headquarters and units. The evaluation of these preparedness is carried out at the end of each Czech Armed Forces operational training cycle.

In the light of neorealist theory, the Eastern enlargement of NATO satisfies basic feature of expansion: 9 former countries of the Warsaw Pact become members of NATO. USA as a Sea power reinforced its superiority at the detriment of the RF as a continental power. The annexation of Crimea, as a Russian answer, had intensified security fears of post - Soviet countries and of Poland and enlarged the space for external balancing of the USA. Author warns that a confrontational structure had become typical for the area or the Western part of the Post - Soviet space. It increases the number of military incidents, and, even, the threat of a direct military confrontation including a Russian use of tactical nuclear arms, being inspired by the Rogers plan from 1980´s.