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This paper aims to enrich professional discussion on future shape of the Armed Forces of the Czech Republic (AFCR) and is linked to the preceding research and publishing activities of members of the Centre for Security and Military Strategic Studies (CBVSS) at the University of Defence. In its first part, it performs a historical tour to the year 2012 and highlights the reasons that the former leadership of the ACR led to the start of construction work on the concept of AFCR (KVAČR). Briefly describes the interconnection and the hierarchy of individual conceptual and strategic documents, the procedure works on them and summarizes the arguments supporting the need of KVAČR as such. The next section brings potential methodological approaches to the preparation of this document, using the method of the "9S", including practical examples, it renumbers basic strategic assumptions and priorities in various stages, bordered by years 2020 and 2025 as a prerequisite for formulating strategies for achieving this specific goal. Within the document, there is a short excursion into the field of long-term planning for major areas of skills, using their description of DOTMLPFI functional areas, including an example of using this methodology in project preparation of program funding. The recommendations formulated in the article are based on the authors' best experiences with the preparation of documents of a similar type in the years 2003-2013, the recommendations of experts from the broader security community of the Czech Republic, and recommendations of the Alliance. As such, it has been passed to the KVAČR processors at level of the General Staff of AFCR over the years 2013-2014.

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 article presents partial conclusions of the questionnaire survey on "Problem Solving in the Defence Department of the Czech Republic". First, possible types of the addressed problems and methods for solving the ill-structured problems are characterized. The aim of the empirical research, whose findings are presented, was to identify the ill-structured problems that are solved in the CR Defence Department, and to find out the extent of the use of the methods for problem solving within the mentioned organization. In order to collect data, a semi-structured questionnaire was developed. The total of 135 questionnaires provided data for evaluation. The respondents from the researched organization mostly meet the problems which are related to a planning process, also to a change of an organizational structure, training preparation and processing of internal regulations. The methods, which are used to solve the quoted problems in the Defence Department, are expert panel discussion, interview, brainstorming, wargaming (pros and cons analysis), SWOT analysis, analysis of concerned parties and an objective tree.The rules and recommendations for solving ill-structured problems in the CR Department of Defence are defined, based on the found out information, toward the end of the article.

This extended essay is based upon various sources, among others on May 2010 President Obama's speech at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, where President Obama described his national security objectives. The highest priorities of U.S. national security are the safety of Americans at home and abroad and achieving a peaceful, stable world through global cooperation despite a flawed international system. The Obama's security strategy relies heavily on diplomacy and engagement, economic development and other methods of influence, along with U.S. military capabilities with global reach and unsurpassed resources. As we face multiple threats, from nations, non-state actors and failed states, America will maintain the military superiority that has secured country, and underpinned global security, for decades. The security strategy is global, and identifies an array of real or potential security challenges that include: countering violent extremism and insurgency; stopping the spread of nuclear weapons and securing nuclear materials, resolving and preventing conflict; and reducing destabilizing risks to economic interdependence.

Successful protection against Weapons of Mass Destruction and Toxic Industrial Materials is a permanent and current challenge for the Czech Armed Forces Chemical Corps units and formations. Technical and technological improvements of the equipment and material as a result of defence development projects mostly contributed to enhancement of operational capabilities. In some cases, however, the required capability has not been changed or has been worsened. The paper deals with principal results of the study which the authors have elaborated in 2015.

This text is focused on current situation in Syria and Iraq and so called Islamic State, the one of the biggest threats of contemporary world. The rise of this quasi­state at background of civil war in Syria and still not fully solved conflict in Iraq is the result of involvement of many internal and external actors. The form of their involvement and especially their goals are very different from each other and despite sporadic and declaratory agreements in partial points the main reason the Islamic State still exists in very good shape is disunited attitude of local and external powers against it. The main aim of this text is to explain and to analyze main motives and goals of all relevant actors and sides of mentioned conflict and describe the way they affect its dynamics. Due to that it is possible to increase the knowledge of readers in such a chaotic, unclear and often misinterpreted situation in the Middle-East.

The article identifies specific attributes which have influenced duality of training for urban area operations. There are mentioned only the crucial ones. The author was inspired his own experience as infantry unit commander. He used his knowledge gained from military assignments. The article could be considered as topic for future discussion not only on academic but also on specialized level.

The article informs about the state service of professional soldiers in the Armed Forces of the Czech Republic and the Slovak Republic. It compares the state service of professional soldiers in both countries mentioned and analyses the changes that took place in the Armed Forces of the Slovak Republic on January 1, 2016. With reference to the state service it deals with the career of professional soldiers in the Armed Forces of the Slovak Republic. It offers the list of current career courses in the Armed Forces of the Slovak Republic. It analyses and compares the career courses designed for officers of both countries.

The article deals with correlation of strategy and operational art. The aim of the article is to point on deficit of relationship between political decision-making and military planning. The first part of the article simply introduces doctrinal tools of operational art, applicable at both the operational and strategic level. The second part refers to the fact that application of some standard elements of operational art in terms of overall strategic framework loses partly importance because of their use in the context of unconventional conflict has been less appropriate. The third part deals with criticism of the mutual undesirable separation of politicians and military professionals involved in operations planning. Conclusion of the article offers possible solutions of this deficit.

The Ministry of Finance Regulation No. 415, 2008, sets the scope and structure of initial documents for midterm plans of state budget. The Regulation was further specified under the Order by Minister of Defence "Planning Activities and Development of Department", No. 22/2004, MoD Bulletin, October 29, 2004, now updated. It prescribes to follow the Financial Chapter of MoD by individual targets. The final objective thus becomes a specific indicator of defence spendings. This arrangement thus becomes a basic document for monitoring, evaluating and implementation of respective remedies. It will be tied with running Planning, Programming and Budgeting process. They both will share a common target database for data necessary for planning financial means. Its implementation should be accompanied by educational and schooling programmes for personnel involved, the author proposes.

The purpose of this article is to point out the problems of long long-lasting stay in different culture surroundings, countries being at war or undergoing post-war reconstruction. It is the question of the so-called multiculturalism, in which an observer must adapt himself to quite a different culture, or to say it better, to affiliate his life with the knowledge and values shared by another society. This empirical survey, together with collected data, is the first of its kind that was carried out in the Czech Republic. The research was done with the use of questionnaires. Even though the poll was taken among the patch of 95 respondents, its results may be extrapolated over other persons, war correspondents, humanitarian workers, diplomats, or members of church missions.

NATO's Research and Technology Organization covers six panels dealing with technology. System Analysis and Studies panel drafted a long-term scientific study "Joint Operations 2030" that was performed for three years under the direction of CNAD (Conference of National Armaments Directors). This study identifies system approaches of NATO further development. Its purpose is recommend remedies for eliminating potential defects in future Alliance capabilities, in the frame of anticipated security surrounding and emerging new technologies. The work was divided into five states: evaluating previous studies, evaluating basic potential, setting priorities, new technologies and the last stage evaluated results reached by means of Multinational Exercise. The final version of this document (Final Report) will be released in next half. By joining JO2030 the Czech Republic underlined its resolution to contribute to the advance of NATO defence potential.

This concept has been preparing since the early 2009. In short, the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation must be increasingly prepared to intervene far beyond its borders. In the coming decade, NATO will have four central inter-related military missions. The first requirement is to "deter, prevent and defend" against aggression, so as to ensure the political independence and territorial integrity of NATO member states. The report insists on the need to send out military missions beyond the treaty area "when required to prevent an attack on the treaty area or to protect the legal rights and other vital interests of Alliance members". Any expeditionary mission must be based on the principles of the UN charter. Another key item is to cooperate better with those partners, and others worldwide, in order to tackle the new threats posed by cyber attacks, piracy, arms proliferation and energy supply insecurity and climate change. However, in order to achieve the new goals, NATO "must halt the precipitous decline in national defence spending", and to introduce reforms to make spending more efficient.

Army personnel are ranked according to level, from the lowest (privates, sergeants, WOs) to the highest (officers, generals). A total of 80 per cent of professional soldiers, in lowest ranks, are hired at labour market. They form the core of our military personnel, so that they have to be properly taken care of. But in ours, we have still the mentality of mass armies of cold-war period. There have been professional armed forces in the Czech Republic for more than five years, nevertheless the question how to build up the other rank corps is still opened. This article deals with this problem and the method how to cope with the need to form more professionalized NCOs. Broadly speaking, it is the question of the quality overpassing the quantity. Author insists that the British model of NCO's career path should be easily applied into the Czech Armed Forces to get rid of the obsolete recruiting related more to a model of conscription forces.

Defense planning and research has to engage with questions about future developments quite often. Solutions to these questions tend to be hazy due to (I) the missing data, or due to (II) the necessity to build long-term prognoses, which are - by their very nature - only remotely related to any current or historical empirical cases. Under these conditions counterfactuals and their specific - future- oriented - form: scenarios, offer a valuable tool. Nevertheless, counterfactuals and scenarios, due to their limited empirical embeddedness, demand explicit and rigorous application of a theory. The article highlights often overlooked resemblance of scenarios and counterfactuals and derives from this fact some methodological implications for scenario building enterprise. Beyond that, it aims at demonstrating possible contributions as well as obstacles inherent for the use of scenarios and counterfactuals in our defense policy debates.

This paper is above all a quick piece of information on current problem which could have provoked a large war in the Middle East. And also about a unique operation to resolve it. Syrian chemical weapons used to be a serious threat to the entire Middle East, mainly in the context of the ongoing civil war. This was confirmed by repeated use of nerve agent sarin during the conflict. The destruction of Syrian chemical weapons eliminated the threat of escalation of the conflict and its extension to other countries.

During the Arab Spring Revolution, when the protests against the Syrian government began in 2011, Russia was one of the strongest backers of President Bashar al-Assad's regime, backing its right to use force if necessary to prevent or put down an uprising. Currently, the Russian Federation is the power which has most prominently provided a diplomaticshieldforthe Syrian state and bolstered it witharms supplies, although Moscow talks about the need to "balance" between the warring parties in Syria. The main aim of this paper is to analyze the motives of the foreign and security policy of the Russian Federation in support of Syrian President BasharAssad in the background of Russian interests and influence of norms. At the theoretical level, the paper builds upon a combination of conventional constructivism and rationalism approaches, which in relation to the motives of Russian protection and defense of the ruling regime in Syria reflects a number of fundamental knowledge.

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 article deals with the integration of outside resources into the process of support Forces in Military operations. The crux of this work lies in the illustration of 'place' and the role of Civil Contracting Supports in the Combat Service system of Armed Forces. It also accentuates the sense and complexity of Combat Service Support. The article analyses the advantages. disadvantages and risks for utilizating Civil Contractors in armed conflicts. The text respects this and acknowledges the benefit from experience of the NATO Armies in this field. In the closing part the authors formulate recommendations for the later boom of 'Combat Service' theory and practice. The effect and benefit of this article lies first of all in its suggestion of criteria for the selection of contractors.

The paper presents the additive manufacturing method as a possible alternative to the current subtractive manufacturing methods. Based on literature survey, some of the problematic aspects of the discrepancy between the lengthy development cycles and rapidly changing operational demands responsive to current threats are identified. The paper also includes some thoughts on possibilities of solving inadequacies in the development cycles, as well as related logistical apparatus, by additive manufacturing. For the sake of objectivity, the last part is dedicated to deficits of additive manufacturing, being inherent to technology or possibly to be overcome by further development of the field.

The paper concerns the crisis in Yemen which escalated once again in the beginning of 2015 and considers legality of Operation Decisive Storm launched in March 2015 by military coalition led by Saudi Arabia.

This article analyses frozen Conflict in separatist region of Transnistria in the light of recent crisis on Ukraine. Despite standing in the shade of Ukraine, the importance of Transnistria has been once again highlighted by Russian support to separatist movements in post-soviet area. Hence text also argues, that by precise analysis of important agents involved in Transnistrian conflict, such as Russia, Ukraine or Romania, we can better understand not only current development in this "de-facto state", but also put annexation of Crimea (or war in eastern Ukraine) into context. On the other hand, influence of Russian military presence in Transnistria on Ukraine war effort is also important and deserves to be closely studied.

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 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.

The main goal of the article is to present the activities of members of the Slovak Armed Forces in the military operation ISAF and familiarize the reader with the main facts involving the Slovak Republic as a member of the Alliance in this operation. The text outlines the genesis of the ISAF and structure of the components of the Slovak contingent. SAF members during their tenure at ISAF gain valuable experiences that make up their professional competence and achieve greater compatibility with other members of the Alliance. In conclusion, the most important awards are presented by the coalition partners for professional use, so competence and commitment of the SAF to assist and defend basic human rights and freedom of the Afghan people, to help them take responsibility for themselves and their country.

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.

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.

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.