Transitions Online_Around the Bloc-Bulgaria, Slovakia Put Fighter Upgrades On Hold
Sweden’s Gripen in the running to replace both countries’ Soviet-designed MiG-29s.
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Sweden’s Gripen in the running to replace both countries’ Soviet-designed MiG-29s.
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Within the last decades war gradually and unnoticeably changed its character. Classical war that for some time in high degree determined the cold war rivalry, conducted by states, seems to disappear in the shadows of history. States as war monopolists ceased to exist, more and more often replaced by semi-state structures and even private „war contractors”. Here I think of local warlords, guerilla groups of not defined political inspiration, but also of now globally acting firms offering mercenaries and of international terrorist networks, for whom the war is the main job. Many of them for their own benefit conduct wars, the background of which the analysts are not able to explain. That creates challenge for the military, who have to meet the new requirements. Can the army that is disposing of the remnants of Sovietization avoid Americanization in the pursue of professionalism?
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Military scenario development is the subject of this article which is going to bring some essential characteristics and propose a working option for elaborating a scenario. The final aim is to help military planners have a good working procedure when developing a scenario in order to create a document updated with warfare evolution and operational planning process ready to respond to all risks and threats. The scenario is a way used by military structures at all levels of military art (strategical, operational and tactical) to get in contact with a probable unknown situation, to assimilate it and to sort it out. The article focuses on the scenario development process and proposes stages and activities that should be followed by a joint operational group when tasked with preparing a scenario.
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China’s strategic imperative in the Indian Ocean region reflects its need for protection of national interests, mainly in the field of economic security (expanding business opportunities abroad) and energy security (sea lines of communication security). Long-term presence of China in the Indian Ocean region will not only increase its responsibility for security issues across the region but is also associated with the implementation of projects under the initiative of the 21st Century Maritime Silk Route Economic Belt.
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The ability to deliver information about an incident, long time before it has happened, puts intelligence analysts into the very first line of fight against the threat of terrorism, extremism, proliferation, or activities of alien services. The article deals with some aspects of intelligence research that often influence the value of final reports, presented to their consumers. It analyses intelligence database designated for its end users. It simultaneously reflects the question of indications and warnings against opponent‘s surprise attacks. Last but not least, the purpose of this article is both to attract the readers’ attention to this theme and also to start debate on the methods of predictions of future threats, drawn up by analysts’ teams, as their reports are not always suitably recognized by their end users.
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The article deals with aspects of operational art inside the operations planning process. It deals with the concepts of operational design and suggests a possible way of introducing such theory into the development process of operational approach. This paper is a free sequel to several articles published in Military Review on this theme. It introduces several professional terms in the field of operational art, up to now not officially established.
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The article reviews contemporary traditional approaches towards the evaluation of ground military vehicles and equipment, oriented on the role and potential of top-ranking officials in this area. The author promotes the introduction of some electronic Log Book for monitoring and rating the operational data of the military equipment, with the help of new General Packet Radio Service module, to improve the effectiveness of operational system, maintenance and savings.
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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.
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The topic of this essay is an insight into the interrelations of the economic analysis of armed conflict. The author tries to explain its substance and importance and at the same time he warns against the difficulties with its implementation. Backed by several studies, we must conclude that there is a lot of confusion in terminology we use. It is therefore proposed to apply cost-benefit analysis, so that we could create a unified terminology and simultaneously to use this analysis to present armed conflict economy in terms of overall expenses vs. likely benefits aroused by respective armed warfare.
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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.
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The fire support is an inevitable prerequisite for the success of combat forces in land military operations and artillery is its key provider. Will it be even in a future complex and uncertain operating environment? The article recalls high requirements on the current ACR artillery and with the use of the Alliance partner’s findings, it points to selected aspects that might influence its capabilities development towards the future operations. The article defines artillery as an indirect fire system and clarifies its role and tasks in the framework of joint fire support. It proposes measures to increase the quality of its training and management. It discusses the issue of an operational concept and its importance for the future ACR artillery, together with introducing main trends in areas of its potential development.
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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.
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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.
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The article presents the theory of information operations on the background of contemporary armed conflicts in Ukraine, Iraq and Syria. In the introduction, information is presented as a phenomenon and the accelerator of social development. It outlines basic information channels that deliver security information to their recipients. Furthermore, the article discusses security and operational environment and also vulnerabilities being caused by increasing dependence on information. The core of the article are information operations presented in theory with the author’s commentary on real application in military practice and in terms of the Czech Armed Forces. As part of information operations are subsequently introduced psychological operations, computer network operations and electronic warfare. The article ends with real examples of information and psychological operations in modern warfare, and conditions of their management in the Czech Armed Forces. The conclusion summarizes the general idea of the security environment and information operations, and stresses the importance of information operations in current and future conflicts.
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The Czech Armed Forces’ professionalization is an underlying qualitative change and its realization is not without risks. This paper outlines the political origin of this phenomenon, characterises the coherence with the transformation of the Alliance and illustrates overseas experience with some recruitment problems, namely the NCOs, the limits of women in the armed forces, the role of voluntary reserve force, and the substantiations for compulsory military service generally. The purpose of this essay is to draw attention to less known pitfalls of this process, with wide connexions, going beyond regular professionalization frames, defined as a task carried out by the military personnel department.
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The aim of this article is to clarify the terminology of Peace Support Operations. This article briefly explains the evolution and history of peacekeeping operations, as well as the basic concepts and operations division of NATO Peace Support Operations. An important part of this article is the definition of Peacekeeping Operations in the doctrinal documents of the Czech Armed Forces. Peace Support Operations are dynamic and challenging activities. The intensity and complexity of Peace Support Operations has been increasing. That is why their political and military ambitions have been increasing too. There is a reason why authors explain this issue for readers, which is the main goal of this article.
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This specialised article deals with Big Data and the exploitation of this current day phenomenon in the field of intelligence disciplines, based on technical methods of data gathering and its relevant assessments. The introduction deals with the issue of development of the security environment and gives general overview on the current trends in the field of technical branches. The following chapter analyses the main trends, especially the digitalisation of the battlefield, rise in data volume and the development of new technologies. The next chapter is focused on the basic terminology description of the Big Data issue, which leads into final assessment and certain prediction of future development in this field and the rise of importance of this trend for the intelligence disciplines in future.
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This article attempts to analyze the theoretical and legal aspects of the concept of a command functioning in the Polish law. The conducted study will be illustrated with examples taken from selected legal acts, including in particular, the statues of Military Counterintelligence Service and Military Intelligence Service, Internal Security Agency and Intelligence Agency, The Police and the Criminal Code. This article attempts to demonstrate that, in the Polish legal system, the concept of a command exists in a “sensu stricto” meaning, which is the military command within the meaning of the Penal Code, and in a “sensu largo” meaning, which includes a series of instructions, which do not meet the requirements of definitional meaning of command in the “sensustricto” sense. The conducted analysis has shown that inconsistent use of the concept of command by the legislature, jurisprudence and doctrine leads to many theoretical and practical problems, in particular, the fact that, for disobeying the exact same order, soldiers and functionaries may be punished in different ways. This article is limited to the area of linguistic analysis only. The need of such narrow approach of the subject is dictated by the fact, that the question of command is not only tied to the military law, but also to the other areas of law such as public international, criminal and administrative law.
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The article argues that the current security model was shaped in a long period. It is shown that the system was shaped by the solutions applied after the II WW, what embraces global and regional solutions. Until the end of the Cold War the applied solutions were assigned to two opposite Blocs: Western and Eastern. After 1989, which is considered to be the symbolic turning point and end of the Cold War, part of the states from the former Eastern Bloc, after introducing market and democratic reforms have joined NATO and the EU. This also included three states created after the dissolution of the former SU. The article states also that security in Europe is challenged by attempt to reconstruct the area of Russian influence. At the same time it states that this process is not limited to voluntary access of the former republics of SU but also includes annexation of the territories of sovereign Ukraine. The article illustrates that the contemporary security system is characterized by strong asymmetry of applied solutions. NATO applies liberal, cooperative solutions, while Russia uses solutions build upon force and military potential.
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In this article the concept of process management and its meaning in management sciences was presented. It underlined that process approach in an activity of many different institutions is now viewed as one of the main trends towards efficient management. Processes as the main elements of the activity are actually combination of realized functions in other system. This article indicated possibilities of implementation of the theoretical presumptions of process orientation to security and defence sciences. Especially it may concern such disciplines and specialities as command, crisis management or managing security and defence institutions. This way it should guarantee further progress of the security and defence sciences especially in the context of information society who expands very quickly.
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