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The article analyzes key aspects of the development of the Czech Republic‘s defense policy since 1989, with a focus on the role of strategic culture. It examines historical, political, and social factors that have shaped the Czech Republic‘s approach to defense and security issues. Special attention is given to the transformation of the Czech Armed Forces, the transition to a professional military model, and responses to changing geopolitical threats. The analysis also considers public perceptions of the military, the influence of historical narratives on strategic culture, and the attitudes of political elites toward defense matters. The article highlights the importance of strategic culture as an analytical framework for understanding long-term trends and the evolution of defense policy, while suggesting potential avenues for future research in the Czech context.

This article deals with one of the most explosive areas of the world today, which is the Near and Middle East (NMEA) and especially the territory of historical Palestine, where the Israeli-Palestinian conflict (IPC) has been going on for a long time. The text deals primarily with historical and military factors and is written as a historical explanatory analysis. It focuses on the most significant historical events and explains the ways of functioning and the consequences of the processes that have been taking place there for a long time.

The center of gravity in military affairs represents a dominant element of military art, used in the planning and conduct of military operations. The doctrine defines it as the main source of power that provides the actor with his strength, freedom of action and/or the will to fight. This article examines Clausewitz’s concept of center of gravity through selected philosophical perspectives and clarifies its significance in military theory and practice. It presents the doctrinal development of the concept, discusses its context, and concludes that the concept of the center of gravity remains a key doctrinal and practical element of operational art.

Cognitive warfare is a new phenomenon that differs from any forms of action previously used in the information space aiming to affect the thinking of target groups. The main difference consists in the targeted and sophisticated use of scientific knowledge from neuroscience, with special attention on consciousness and perception of reality. This deeper understanding of how the human mind works has impacted distributed narratives and the choice of the most suitable technological platforms for their distribution to the target audience. This article presents a conceptual classification of cognitive warfare and defines its three core segments: neuroscience, technology and aspects of social science.

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.

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.

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.

Military spending is a widely discussed topic, especially in the current geopolitical landscape. Expenditures on "equipment" play a pivotal role in total defense spending.. However, the nature of the equipment expenditures is cumulative. Thus, when trying to estimate the capability of a state we should consider a longer period, not just one year. The aim of this article is, therefore, to offer (i) an exploratory analysis of the cumulative equipment expenditures of NATO countries between 2014-2023 and (ii) to verify - by using OLS multivariate regression - the extent to which the GDP per capita primarily drives these expenditures (adjusted per soldier), the share of defense spending from the GDP, or by the fraction of defense spending that goes specifically to equipment. The results show that the GDP per capita is by far the most powerful predictor.

Despite the attempts of labeling hybrid warfare as a new form of warfare or even as a factor that is changing the nature of war, hybrid warfare is part of a war from the Antiquity to the present day. The essence of hybrid warfare is in parallel use of regular and irregular military forcesand different means of pressure by a power unwilling to openly attack a weaker opponent. Information dimension is analyzed in the cases of hybrid warfare against Croatia (1990-91) and Ukraine (2014). In both cases the key target of hybrid warfare was social cohesion of the attacked countries. In the Croatian case, despite a strong propaganda campaign followed by the direct and indirect use of military force, the attacking side was unable to break social cohesion of the majority of Croatia's population. In the Ukrainian case, the lack of social cohesion has prevented organization of the efficient response to hybrid warfare waged by the Russian Federation. Both cases also indicate the significance of national identity in preserving a society's social cohesion.

The article focuses on identifying the key factors of human resources within the Czech state needed to carry out mobilization of the armed forces in case of a military conflict. It primarily answers the questions of whether these factors are sufficient and can be used effectively in the mobilization process. It addresses the issue of military records, sustainability of military reserves and their profitability. It also deals with the influence of secondary factors on the possibilities of creating and training reserves, especially the motivation of citizens to defend the state and the physical fitness of the mobilized population.

This study deals with long-term monitoring of physical fitness of soldiers, namely members of the 31st Radiation, Chemical and Biological Protection Regiment in order to determine whether the annual fitness test has rising trend, or in another words, whether the military service physical training process is fittingly effective. The study was carried out by comparing the assessment of physical fitness each year 2012-2019. The monitored group consisted of 316 professional soldiers, who participated in this assessment regularly, without interruption in the same disciplines.
Due to the managed long-term military physical training process, overall improvement in the strength and endurance disciplines throughout the monitoring period took place.
Based on the acquired data, it may be stated that the annual testing showed rising trend and thus the efficiency of the in-service physical training process proved to be good and appropriate.

Although the level of the overall CBRN threat in the world is currently considered to be low, there is a trend of a growing concern about CBRN terrorism. Various terrorist groups have shown interest in using CBRN materials to disrupt the global order and economy. The motivation and factors that influence the potential use of CBRN agents in terrorist attacks arise from the fact that CBRN agents have potentially high mortality and can cause serious consequences. A large number of potential dual-use (military and civilian) items as well as the introduction of new technologies in use can be utilized for the CBRN attacks and create a wide range of new possible terrorist (and military) threats. This paper provides a general overview of the past and current situations regarding CBRN terrorism, analyses some of current widely known new technologies that can be utilized for CBRN terrorist attacks and analyses the biggest potential threats from CBRN hazards.

The paper argues that proxy war is an increasingly often used tool in the Middle East, in the already conflicted territories where international involvement is not only enabled, but also attracted and encouraged by the international law for the purpose of region's securitization. Thus, the paper's aim is to increase awareness on the fact that the Middle Eastern countries passing through civil war periods and accepting external actors to deal with their crises do not only become fertile territories for proxy wars, but the intervening actors start pursuing their own interests beyond the host country's interest in resolving the conflict.

The article presents a summary of analytical outcomes aimed at mapping current NATO and EU approaches to capability planning and their impact on national planning processes, which were carried out by security and defence institutions. The outcomes point out the fact that significant number of NATO nations and EU member states are using approaches to capability planning which reflect specifically national strategic objectives. It is of note that no country has implemented procedures that could be considered as standardised in terms of a single planning process within NATO or the EU. On the other side, analyses point out the fact that NATO and EU planning processes can be hardly expected to be unified in the short term. Nevertheless, NATO and EU member countries should pay close attention to the outputs of their national planning processes in order to comply with the single set of capability requirements as implemented in the relevant NATO and EU planning processes.

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.

States should avoid arbitrability in decision-making processes concerning foreign fighters by amending their current legislature including criminal prosecution of foreign fighters. Authorization regime similar to the one in Poland may offer higher guarantees, control and monitoring of medium to high-threat individuals whilst offering states direct targeting of prevention and mitigation policies. States should create a transparent and clear framework for evaluation of applications to travel abroad for the purpose of fighting with lawfully set discretion for state organs that will enable them to deny applications for political, social or even economic reasons.

The article is about six French Special Military Operations (SMOs) that were conducted in Islamic countries in the MENA region between 2011 and 2022. It provides an explanation of their historical, geopolitical, and military contexts while also assessing their compliance with international law. The text introduces two innovative concepts, the Holland doctrine and the Macron doctrine, and analyses both their successes and failures. Ultimately, the article concludes by addressing the question of why these SMOs achieved military success but failed to meet political objectives, resulting in a significant disillusionment among French political and military elites, as well as the participating soldiers.

The article deals with the system of joint doctrine development in the Czech Armed Forces (CAF) focused on the operational level of command and control, including the implementation of the NATO doctrines into national conditions. Among others, it was found that the structure and content of the Czech doctrines are not systematically set. Allied doctrines are introduced either by rewriting them into the Czech version or by introducing them in the full English version. In both cases, it might cause inconsistency in military terminology. The Coordinating Committee as the only supervisory body does not have the authority to streamline the process of producing military publications. The most important paper recommendations include alignment of the Czech doctrinal framework with the NATO architecture, adoption of Allied doctrines in the English version including the national specifics, or redistribution of competencies within the processing group. Notwithstanding, the above-mentioned proposals, which indicated high impact, require crucial steps to be taken to implement them.

Russia has always had a keen interest in the Western Balkans. It was historically realised in the context of geopolitical continuities of the expansion of its territory and influence. Russia has tried to gain influence in this region for political, economic, identity and strategic reasons. However, after the start of military aggression against Ukraine in 2014, Russia opted for a confrontation in the Western Balkans where it opposes the EU and NATO expansion policies and influence of the West in this region. Key Russian leverage for spreading its influence in the region is the Serbian geopolitical design of military neutrality and the convergence of strategic interests of the two countries. Russia wants to exert a strong influence on the Western Balkans, and thus on the security of the EU. On the other hand, Serbia wants to position itself as the main actor of power in the region with simultaneous support from both Russia and the West.

This article discusses the transformation of the information environment, which allows an adversary to exploit cyber-enabled psychological and information operations. It presents the options currently available to an adversary to exploit the vulnerability of the information environment, chiefly the cognitive vulnerabilities of target groups. Thus, hostile interests are often pursued through manipulation, using disinformation, propaganda, algorithms and artificial intelligence. In the light of these developments, the article defines a society-centric approach, in which societal and human resilience are emphasised.

The purpose of the article is to present a situational analysis of the education and training system in the field of security in the Republic of Bulgaria in 2021, in which internal and external threats, strengths and weaknesses, problem areas and possible solutions will be highlighted. The subject of the article is the education and training system, as the specific subject is the education and training system in the field of security in the Republic of Bulgaria.

The article studies possibilities of utilization of Global Navigational Satellite Systems Galileo and BeiDou in the Armed forces of the Czech Republic. It analyses its advantages, weaknesses and assets the army. The study is grounded in knowledge and experience of the Czech military geographic service and supports it with comparisons with already implemented systems GPS and GLONASS. European project Galileo brings for the most part independence on GPS and direct influence of the Czech Republic. Chinese system BeiDou provides individual alternative, although with limited access. In combination with multiconstelation receivers, they can substantially complement the current structure, make more accurate measurements and lower vulnerability to jamming and spoofing/deception. AČR may utilise benefits of the systems with modernisation of devices a by participation in development projects of global navigation.

This article aims to highlight the most important changes within the transatlantic defense relations. The central argument is that NATO is gaining a conditional nature, transforming collective defense into a form of transactional defense. The study utilizes Paul Kennedy's notion of "imperial overstretch" to explain the strategic context of the transatlantic defense relations. After this, the analysis highlights how the transatlantic defense relations gained a transactional character that is resonating to this American "imperial overstretch". The second part of the study focuses on the latest developments concerning the US military presence in Europe and highlights their transactional character, thus enabling the emergence of transactional defense within NATO.

Research into the historiography of the use of Weapons of Mass Destruction involves an excursion of the study of recent problems of Chemical Corps in the literature. Four basic periods were identified in the development of the theory of Chemical Corps and the concept of the use of Weapons of Mass Destruction. 1. The First World War and the foundation of Czechoslovakia as a period of changes in the principles of military leadership due to the existence of chemical weapons. 2. The period after the end of World War II, reflection on threats in the form of the development of Chemical Corps, the take-over of Soviet doctrine and military research objectives. 3. 1990s as a period characterized by an accent on the Gulf War, proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction and the introduction of new technical means of Chemical Corps. 4. Beginning of the 21st century and the threat of ultra-terrorism, the development of specialized capabilities of Chemical, Biological, Radiological, and Nuclear Defence, birth of the 9th Chemical Protection Company of immediate response and literary dominance of international security issues, which outweigh force protection problems in operations. The researched articles illustrate the originality of scientific thinking and the social contribution of scientific literature to the defense sector.

Laser weapons have long been the subject of debate. The article discusses the potential adoption of laser weapons by infantry units and the future of small firearms. The text analyses these weapons in selected categories that subsequently support the evaluations and the conclusion. If miniaturisation is successfully managed, the comparison reveals an interesting paradox. While laser weapons and firearms do not rival each other as distinct functionalities, given the right conditions, they can actually complement each other and compensate for any disadvantages within their respective categories. Today's complex battlefield is placing ever greater demands on small arms, pushing conventional weapon mechanisms - combined with ammunition that guarantees accuracy and lower recoil, albeit at the expense of penetration - towards the limits of further possible advancement in technology. Improved passive individual protection restricts the wounding potential of pistol ammunition, reducing it to below 150 m for rifle cartridges, while guided ammunition tends to be prohibitively expensive. Under the right conditions, laser weapons could compensate for any of these drawbacks.

The air force plays an important role in armed conflicts. It was no different in the Odyssey Dawn and Unified Protector operations in Libya in 2011. The European dependence on the US became fully apparent during those operations. After 2011, US attention has been shifted to Asia. This article focuses on the evaluation of the development of European air forces from 2011 to 2021 in the context of the shift of US attention to Asia. The article uses a dataset to compare the number of aircraft in specific categories in 2011 and 2021. The research shows that European states maintain a fleet of around 2,000 fighter jets, while compared to 2011, the number of ISR aircraft decreased from 183 to 122 and the number of air-to-air refuelling aircraft from 70 to 67. In contrast, the number of MALE unmanned vehicles has doubled from 45 to 91. However, in the context of the US shift Asia, those numbers are insufficient, and European states are still dependent on US support.

The participation of women in the armed forces creates many challenges to their integration in a masculine-dominated mechanism. Traditionally, military service embodies the macho culture where a certain type of physical strength is required, attainable only through the male frame. The traditional military personnel model represents a young male force that is supported by spouses who stay at home but modern warfare and the inclusion of technology have opened many chances for women to be included in the armed forces. Therefore, the aim of this paper is to highlight various fields of armed forces where women in Pakistan may or may not be suitable to be integrated. The paper descriptively analyzes the participation of women in armed forces in general and in the Pakistan Armed Forces in particular. Recommendations highlight the combat operations relevant to the Pakistan Armed Forces context which women can or cannot be integrated into.

Voices about the need to build a joint European Union army have been appearing on the European scene for several years, but recently these voices have become stronger, especially after the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Therefore, in the article, the authors deal with the issue of the possibility of creating a common European army. They draw on from socio-scientific political science approaches to current security frameworks, examine the current state, and at the same time point out that, despite the threats Europe is facing, there is still no clear plan for how such an army should be created. Considering the facts mentioned in the article, the authors state that the creation of a common European army, at least for now, seems unlikely, as a supranational model of the European army would require the transfer of sensitive national competences from the member states to the EU level.

The article discusses the importance of security sector reform. The aim of the article is to present the potential of the concept of security sector reform as a NATO tool for prevention and resolution of internal conflicts on the real example of the deployed military advisory team of the Armed Forces of the Slovak Republic to the ISAF operation in Afghanistan. The authors focus on the orientation in the topic and correlation and causal anchoring of the topic in the introduction and the first part of the article. The second part presents the initial situation of the deployment of the Slovak advisory team in the ISAF operation. The third part and the discussion summarize lessons identified from the deployment of the advisory teams of the Armed Forces of the Slovak Republic. It also illustrates the conceptual framework, conditions and axioms for optimal and effective security force assistance within the efforts of the security sector reform as an important part of the stabilization and reconstruction concept.