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The problem of forming military decisions lies in the very core of this article. Among others, there are a lot of highly unpredictable impact factors; there are many assessment criteria for individual variants of solving problems. Criteria of qualitative characters, and various interpretations of data information demand quality decisions; they are sometimes difficult to understand and even contradictory. The commanders and their staffs must be well educated, trained and experienced. To meet this precondition we must ensure quality of career training, supported by practical experiences. The staff work must be practiced regularly, with the use of various scenarios, supplemented by historical studies of past or recent fi ghts and battles.

The existence of the Czech Army is at state. We need to get over present cut in military budget, ill-advised savings, without searching for new appropriate financial and material sources. To save something important means always to sacrifice or to give up something. Some security and military experts wish to dissociate themselves with approved methods. They think that the White Paper doesn't express opinions on many important things. It assumed that after five years there will be need to revise this White Book. So, proposes the author, wouldn't be better for us to regard the White Book only as an analytical document containing certain proposals for the following Defence Strategy of the CR, as originally intended?

There is an urgent need to recognize changed priorities and evolve new approaches to non-proliferation and disarmament objectives for a sharper focus on the real and present dangers to international peace and stability. The focus must now shift to more effective monitoring and verification of compliance at various levels. The proposed ROOT system (Responsible Ownership of Technology) might be one of such means to meet above mentioned challenges that could eliminate present-day dangers and contribute to international peace and stability. It is the technology for security in the 21st century.

Army rations or preserved foods are used to be normally prepared in field kitchen. For standardization reasons, the forces of NATO nations have agreed on several principles, embedded in STANAG 2937 that is the basic document for nutrition of soldiers, compulsory for all NATO member states. Up to now, as a field food support, the Army of the Czech Republic has had at its disposal only the so-called "combat ration food", offered in two variants. At Jan Bata University Zlín, experts finished the development of pre-prepared meals, i.e. "meals ready to eat" intended to be prepared in field conditions. Basic rations meet all requirements prescribed by the Czech Field Manual Prov-1-1. Emergency rations meet 60 % of required energy value. They are intended to help in crisis situations, in time of lack of food. For handling, packing and traffic grounds, food rations are planned for 25 persons.

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.

Europe is a maritime continent whose economic concerns and security could be backed only by the power of navy forces. The Czech Republic is not a maritime state, but it is a member country of both NATO and the EU, it participates in the formation of common security policy. Czech soldiers could take part in combined joint military operations, where one of forces is also a Navy. Dozens of Czech citizens are employed in common international institutes and staffs; they all need a broader view, including the knowledge of Integrated European Naval Strategy. Their activities promote the status of the Czech Republic at international level.
This contribution contextually explores European space and its naval power. It introduces naval forces projection of European national navies, the bulk of which best respond to current security issues, along with decisions of the national governments of the EU and NATO member states. The article also dedicates extensive attention to the Russian naval strategy.

Attributes and quality of the security system of the Czech Republic depend on the quality of human potential, which is part of institutions to guarantee security in the broadest sense of the word. The preparation of the staff of each part of the security system, as defined in the Security Strategy of the Czech Republic (2011), is performed in universities, colleges, and middle schools, training facilities, scientific research facilities and by employers. The capacity of educational institutions, in effect exceeds requirements of practice. The coordination of their activities and the content of education are managed by twelve-year-old conceptual document that has been in need of updating. This paper discusses those aspects and points out directions and ideas for addressing of some problems of current practice, and also some of the challenges of the future.

In the September Scottish referendum of its separation from the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, the majority of Scottish voters decided against these efforts. But in case of success, Scottish nationalists originally projected considerable military forces. A five-million nation should have had defence budget of 2.5 billion pounds a year, which is in fact roughly a double of the Czech defence budget! During subsequent ten years after independence, the new Scottish Government planned armed forces of 15,000 regular and another five thousand reserve personnel. The article focuses on this rather unknown dimension of Scottish independence debate.

The peace is a state of affairs among states, nations and mankind, characterized by a friendly coexistence, solving matters in dispute by means of negotiations and accords, without use of armed and physical forces or psychological coercion. For preserving peace it is important to respect state sovereignty, independence, the right of nations to define their own courses. The theory of peace, dealing with those items, being introduced by the following article, is called paxology.

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 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. 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 implementation process of a new policy for training 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. Furthermore, the article deals with the clarification of the approach to the development of educational documentation and the chosen form of organization and conduction of military career courses. Also, a quality control system and a collection of information needed for upgrading of the senior officers career education curricula are described.

This essay is focused upon the concept of Perpetual Peace (1795) by the German Philosopher Immanuel Kant. To reach this goal, he advocated the establishment of a word federation of republican states. But some key prerequisites (s.c. preliminary and definitive articles) must be completed. The authoress compares the Kant's concepts with the ideas of solidarity by the Czech philosopher Jan Patočka. The readers themselves must pass the judgement whether Kant's prerequisites of eternal peace-even for more then two centuries-are fulfilled, or not. This subject matter belongs to a relatively young field of study dealing with war and peace, the so-called paxology, the theory how peace can be maintained in the world.

This essay is focused upon the concept of Perpetual Peace (1795) by the German Philosopher Immanuel Kant. To reach this goal, he advocated the establishment of a word federation of republican states. But some key prerequisites (s.c. preliminary and definitive articles) must be completed. The authoress compares the Kant's concepts with the ideas of solidarity by the Czech philosopher Jan Patočka. The readers themselves must pass the judgement whether Kant's prerequisites of eternal peace-even for more then two centuries-are fulfilled, or not. This subject matter belongs to a relatively young field of study dealing with war and peace, the so-called paxology, the theory how peace can be maintained in the world.

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.

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.

The article introduces a variant of alternative accoutrements provided to the soldiers of the Army of the Czech Republic to replenish and compensate individual standardized items. The article proposes changes in furnishing soldiers, so that they would take into account their individual occupational specialities and predominant types of used military uniforms. Even though the authors use a simplified model in this paper, the final version of accoutrement modification represents the updating of the current law regulations.

Respecting rules of international laws is indispensable to guarantee a peace balance among forces of all states. It ought to be in their own interest. By and large, the flagrant breaking of those rules and acts of aggression correspond directly to the military power of individual states. Examples are abundant. This essay deals with the definition of aggression that was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly on December 14, 1974.

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.

The article deals with some aspects of applied theory of operational art within the operations planning process. It discusses the area of operational design concepts and suggests possible ways of this theory application in the process of operational approach development. The described theory is a sequel to the article published in this Military Review No. 1/2014.

Changing security environment and the need to address conventional and especially asymmetric threats and risks, wherever they occur, establish clear requirements on the development of national capabilities. Armed forces are required to be fully deployable and sustainable in operations in austere conditions for an extended period of time. In NATO-led operations currently participate many nations of different sizes, force structures, equipment, training and capabilities. The only way to reach operational goals while achieving economies of scale is a mutual cooperation of all involved participants. Basic key prerequisite for such cooperation is interoperability.

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 identifies specific attributes which have influenced success of modern warfare conducted by infantry battalions and their sub-units. There are mentioned ways to suppress the negatives and opportunities to use positives. There is drafted a possible task organization structure of battalion which allows the variability, modularity and combat readiness, according to capabilities and statements catalogue. The author was inspired by his own experiences as an infantry unit commander. He uses his knowledge gained from military assignments. The article could be considered as topic for future discussions not only on academic but also on specialized level.

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.

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 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.

This paper refers about the threat of Islamic terrorism, its roots, motives, as well as its origins. Namely the author informs about the Jemaah Islamiyah, Islamic organization, which is less know in the Czech Republic. Indonesia has a larger Muslim population than any other country in the world, with approximately 202.9 million identified as Muslim (88,2 % of Indonesia´s population). It is generally regarded as a tolerant country, in which various religions living side by side without larger problems. Nevertheless even here the danger of violent Islamic terrorism has arisen. The theme is treated in a proper historical context, with regards to possible impacts on security situation in the world.

This article tries to analyse the employees of central state administration, who are involved in analytical, conception, planning and strategy activities. We organized a research at eleven ministries in 2013, to familiarize themselves with their roles. Only three ministries refused to take part in this research (home office, regional development ministry and agriculture ministry). The results reached describe how examined groups evaluated various factors influencing their analytic and conception performances. The identified state at the Defence Ministry is compared with overall situations at other ministries of the Czech Republic. At the end of this article the author expresses certain suggestions and recommendations how to improve current state of affairs.

This paper deals with a geospatial support at a strategic level, especially with the production of rapid map products, presenting at this level the most required product type. Backed by their own working experiences from both NATO and EU command structures, the authors describe requirements for geospatial products created at a strategy level, emphasizing the importance of respecting the general cartographic principles. The authors compare the general technology of thematic map production, making use of Geographic Information System, technology, with the technology specific to the strategic level. They also describe the specifics of production at that level, presenting examples both similarities and differences between geospatial support in NATO and the EU.

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.

Its own nuclear program is an important instrument of Iran's domestic and foreign policy. In foreign policy it is used for promotion of its regional interests and it also serves as a guarantee against foreign actor's interference in Iranian domestic affairs. So far, the negotiations between Iran and the international community have not brought about any tangible results. Among other reasons, there are different expectations of both parties. The international community is ready to lift sanctions, supposing Iran accepts the UN resolutions. Iran, by contrast, demands to be recognized as an internationally recognized regional power, with legitimate rights and interests.

As a consequence of shrinking military budget, secondary military schools in the Czech Republic were considerably reduced. Actually, there is only one left nowadays. Its future is rather dim, not only due to the Financial Outlook for 2018. The White Paper on Defence 2011 postulated educational scope offered by any secondary military school. But such mission could be easily transferred on other school institutions, without any impact on the national security. Even other Czech state institutions, dealing with national security, very soon will have to answer such to-be-or-not-to-be question. Namely the Ministry of Interior, struggling to economize, runs two secondary schools of its own. This article is a summary of the evolution of secondary schools needed for national security purposes, since 1993. It challenges the conservative point of view saying that in no case their educational capabilities could be substituted.