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It is evident that Barack Obama diverges from Bush's pre-emptive strategy. There are changes in style and contents. Obama begins to direct American policy more towards diplomatic negotiations instead underlining military strength. It is evident namely in proposed negotiations with Iran and in case of Russia, where he wants to overcome cooling down after Russia-Georgia clashes and gas crisis. He insists on avoiding unnecessary conflicts and puts stress on good relations with allies and building new partnerships. He is going to withdraw soldiers from Iraq and in spite of problems in Afghanistan to reduce U.S. military budget. Even though Obama wants to maintain American world's leadership, there are some signs of partial changes in American foreign policy, e.g. his orientation towards Asia suggests first signs of multilateral approach of post-American era. The author also mentions the question of "American radar" in the Czech Republic, the fate of which depends on Iran's nuclear power programme.

Had PhDr. Miroslav Purkrábek, CSc. was still alive today, he would be 80 years old. It was on September 8, 2005, that Miroslav Purkrábek, suffered a stroke. This year it has been fi ve years since he died. He was a person who contributed to social sciences on three distinctive fi elds: military sociology, sociology of military health, and sociology of public policy. As a gifted scholar he expected that alongside with disarmament talks and preparing collective defence, especially after the fall of world?s socialist system, that task of the army would shift towards preventive, threatening role. But he even lived to see the moments when military professionals were engaged in real combat, in preemptive conflicts, against non-traditional, assymetric forces of guerrilla character. At the same time he could see that another hypothesis of transition to all professional forces was going be fulfi lled. Unfortunately, the Czech Army was not prepared for this important process, as political and MoD leaders at were occupied by this theme of professionalization only marginally.

The article deals with persistent problems of Czech military policy within 1993-2009, its achievements and failures. A new managerial concept, system planning, programming and budgeting, which superseded a communist central control, was not implemented fully because of governance instability. The office of Defence Minister was held by 11 persons within 1993-2009 (Czech Republic). Among others, it aroused the return of a concept of central planning in 2004, which was not successful, because it was not supported by institutions outside the MoD. The authors propose more transparency in military matters and better cooperation with academic community to prevent the repetition of concepts supporting short-term goals instead of long-term visions.

The main Alliance mission is to "safeguard the freedom and security of its member countries" and to "deter and defend against any threat of aggression against any of them". Those general tasks are tailored today to changed international security surroundings. In May this year, a report by the experts group was released, forming the basis for further negotiations over the new strategical concept of NATO. The experts produced a document of first-rate quality identifying main tasks NATO is facing today. At the same time this document redefines prospective directions the Alliance should follow in the years to come. Without a broad popular support NATO's engagements namely off European territory couldn't be vindicated and justified. The same is true as far allocation of sources for NATO missions and developing military capabilities are concerned. So, the communication with public thus becomes a further dimension of this highest strategic document.

The article is a polemical expression of authors' opinion over this problem. It is related to the orientation of society, political coalitions, and single states towards higher goals. If we admit that the sustainable development of society is the base for securing a peace and stability, then we can state that the question of security or consecutively country defence cover problems of the whole social system, subsystems and system elements. Strategical decision-making ought to be the highest priority in our society. It is indisputable that such decisionmaking deserves scientifi c support. At the end of this article the authors propose a short algorithmic program for Czech military strategy that is planned for the year 2014 and the concept of Czech army development planned for 2015.

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.

In recent years both authoresses took part in several important international terminology meetings: European Association for Lexicography (EURALEX), International Conference and Exhibition Dedicated to Defence Training, Education and Simulation (ITEC), and finally the highest Alliance terminology forum: NATO Terminology Programme. In our country this subject is under the authority of Defence Standardisation, Codification and Government Quality Assurance Authority. All problems are incorporated in the Terminology Programme of Defence Department. It deals with STANAG 3680 implementations, MoD's standardisation policy, standardisation terminology process. The most representative terminology body within the Army of the Czech Republic is the Terminology Conference of MoD, traditionally held in the premises of the Defence University Brno.

The NATO's New Strategic Concept is only starting point to open discussion on a wide range of security problems. At the beginning there is a description of Czech home politics, attitudes of Czech political parties toward NATO alliance. The author explores the history of NATO's identity crisis. In recent years, different security optics of the members splintered NATO. The US wants an expeditionary alliance with a global reach, the Western Europeans hold to a vision of a regional club of liberal democracies, the Central Europeans have a wish so that Washington would stand by them when they will find themselves pressured by Russia. NATO is divided on how to reform its decision-making processes and how to fund and resource its home and away missions. In Afghanistan, the Alliance faces the most difficult operational challenge to date, with a real possibility of strategic failure. The overarching problem is how to define the core business of NATO: cyber defence, energy security, WMD proliferation, stability and reconstruction missions, out-of-area missions, territorial security, enlargement, partnership-building. The discussion over the New Strategic Concept needs to reorder the question how to define NATO's appropriate roles and go from there.

The Provincial Reconstruction Team of Czech Republic operates in very complicated conditions and environment that are in fact hostile. It can't be excluded that growing scepticism, today common among Afghanistan security experts, more or less could affects even Czech members of ISAF missions. This study deals with existing knowledge end experiences of Czech PRT in Afghanistan. It is divided into two parts. The fi rst one concerns with outside and inside factors infl uencing ISAF missions. It brings in details characteristics of geographical, historic ambiances in which ISAF mission are performed. The second part concentrates on tangible experiences of Czech PRT members, both in political and military spheres. Here the authors summarize conclusions and upon them they outline challenges for the future.

The world is changing, new centres of global development have come into being. BRIC stands for Brazil, Russia, India and China that have formed a bloc to challenge US dominance. The acronym BRIC was coined in 2001 by an analyst for Goldman Sachs bank who argued that, by 2050, the combined economies of the BRIC countries would eclipse the combined economies of the current richest countries. This new power politics is reflected by the team of authors Miloš Balabán and Antonín Rašek in a book mentioned above and therefore apart form the BRICK attention is paid to the Unites States and the EU respectively. The main purpose of their analysis is to predict prospective trends in global governance, they lay down four hypothetical scenarios of possible world's development.

In 1939-41 Mr. Kácha was involved in Czech home resistance movement. At the beginning of 1948, the year of communist coup d'état, he became a member of illegal group of democratic army officers and military "academics" (officer candidates) at the Military Academy Hranice, headed by Col. Alexandr Korda. They collected intelligence information and prepared plans for the situation of prospective liberation of Czechoslovakia by Western democratic armies, or the Soviet Union?under the pressure of bad economic conditions or under Western pressure?would withdraw from Eastern Europe. They planned to form control authority to prevent chaos and acts of violence. In September 1949 he was sentenced to life imprisonment, after the Velvet Revolution, in May 1995, he was promoted to the rank of Major General. He was awarded the White Lion Order, Military Division.

Africa has became synonymous with conflict, increasingly violent and protracted. The continent is facing huge difficulties today and the EU is more and more involved in peace enforcement and expeditionary operations. Therefore the purpose of this article is to inform and pass knowledge of operational environment to those Czech soldiers designated to deploy overseas and abroad. It covers topics such as operational areas, understanding EU Battle Group operational Environment and Africa's operational environment. It is necessary for Czech soldiers to understand African operational environment very quickly and profoundly to avoid unfortunate misunderstanding of the local culture, customs, believes, religions, regional official and customary laws. It is a new challenge for the Armed Forces of the Czech Republic to be prepared for the CZE/SVK Battle Group. All information and data for this paper were drawn from unclassified sources.

The term "hybrid war" is frequently used today within the military community, but the term does not bring something new in the view of the terminology of the stability operations, comprehensive approach or compound wars. This concept is based on the destructive threats to the military components of international community. It does not help in delimiting reasons of violent confl ict and from that point it is harmful, as it does not explain soldiers why they are fi ghting the "just war", why they should sacrifi ce their lives in confl icts far away from their homeland. We should not use terms of hybrid wars, hybrid confl icts, hybrid enemies or forces. Only "hybrid warfare" could find some legitimacy, but only when used with the correct definition of the conflict typology, backed by the political objectives of the war. Confl icts typology, as used, forms the framework for the mission analysis orientation at all command & control levels and it guides the informational support to the military decision making processes.

The aim of this work was to make an analysis of current state of catering services in the forces, to define risks of possible harms, damages, losses, or another prospective disasters, in order to propose a systematic approach to the risk management. Identified risks are being completely analysed. Author's team drafted a risks catalogue to make their identification easier. Among others, upon this analysis, they compiled the chart of risks in catering process within the section of the Ministry of Defence of the Czech Republic. A user manual for monitoring and risk control was created, so that we can adopt suitable procurement measures for avoiding or minimizing risks, their occurrences, eventually lowering unwanted results generated by the above mentioned analysed risks.

After a short review of defence R&D history, the author concludes that our country used to reach world's level in some fields: passive warning systems, NBC protection, military surgery, explosives. After the change of political system in 1989 we began to dispose Czech military industries. The only scientific place to left is Defence University Brno, but it is an institution more or less concentrated on education. It is almost impossible to maintain pace with foreign defence industry. In the article there is an exhaustive list of military plants, institutions after 1989, together with the date of their closing down. It is followed by research orientation of defence industry, set according to time periods. The special chapter concentrates on financing defence research, the closing part deals with the period of our membership in NATO. Although there are same positive aspects, such as international cooperation, exploiting sources from abroad, strategical control declined. We see unwise reductions in personnel, abolishing accredited institutions, etc.

This study is based on a paper presented at the conference with the same heading taking place on January 8, 2009. First, the authors enumerate starting points of Czech defence and security polity together with key factors influencing their developments. The whole scale of new threats-from WMD and ballistic proliferation to cyber attack and even non intentional threats like climate change and pandemia-are to be addressed not only in NATO but also in the EU. Existing states of affairs are gradually reflected by Czech security and defence documents: Security Strategy 1999, 2001, 2003; Military Strategy 1999, 2002, 2004, 2008. In this historical context we joined NATO defence alliance and took part in peacekeeping missions abroad. Previous twenty years when we lived in peace could be regarded as a challenge to build Czech statehood. There is no time like a present. Only the future will show us whether we mastered it as much as we could.

In fact, financial resources together with human and material resources belong to the category of "defence resources". They hold a special position in defence system as financial resources are the multiplier of other sources, forming background for the effort of military commanders and leaders. This situation is caused by one simple fact: without the existence of financial resources there is no way how to pay for both human and material assets. This study describes present conditions and prospects of economical development in the word, as well as in the Czech Republic, during the period from 2000 to 2009. The article further analyses development of armed forces financial requirements, funding trends, and identifies factors that are going to determinate future military expenditures.

Animals have been used for military purposes from the ancient world to nowadays. Horses, elephants, mules and camels were carrying supplies and took part in battles. Dogs were trained for securing livestock and military camps. Soviet army used them as live mines during World War II. The U.S. Army explored the possibility of using bats as live incendive devices. Even the terrorists could use animals for destroying chosen targets in the same way armies used to do. The deployment of animals would be advantageous for any terrorist group because security forces would not expect this kind of attack. Up to now, there have been just a few cases of abusing animals by terrorists, e.g. for bomb laden mules or dogs carcasses which hide explosive devices. But animals could also help with the fight against terrorism, for example dogs or bluegill fish.

The article familiarizes readers with theoretical assumptions of planning and strategical decisionmaking in Defence Department and Czech armed forces. The author finds connections and similarities among others with public sector and civilian structures tied with budget spending. The strategical level of planning is a highly complicated and expert procedure. At present, planning process in defence department, within MoD sector, is specifi ed by the Order of Defence Minister No. 33, 2004. In this document, there are highly elaborated principles and rules of planning of activities and development implemented in defence sector. The article is based upon papers and reports presented at the Defence Sources Course, MIDMC 2001-06, Resources Management Institute, USA, held at the Military Academy Brno in 2001, and documents dealing with managerial problems.

At present, MoD department prepares a new method of economic control: budgeting by objectives. The process has two levels. The fi rst level covers all sources control, the second one is restricted to budgeting methods. Our defence department is under the pressured of continual budget cuts, so the leading defence representatives should welcome this new technique which will clearly and distinctly present results of limited defence budgets, both for the army by itself and for country defence. Targeted budgeting will be oriented towards outward institutions (parliament) and inside activities (within defence department). Departmental objectives are to be taken as integrative, supported by IT system linked up with state treasury, offering reliable data about costs and expenses within the Chapter of the Ministry of Defence.

Security situation has been changing all over the world, so has in regional territories. It is necessary for us to create systematically new safety culture with regards to contemporary knowledge and experiences. The Czech Republic contribution to the safety of democratic states must meet their expectations; prospective security studies will have to bring new knowledge and technology which, first of all, will increase the level of general capabilities of the Czech Republic and at the same time to take into consideration the needs of national economy and Czech environment. Capital investments into security research are necessary as a basic input for the safety preparedness level of the CR. For these purposes it is desirable to establish security research that will be able to produce ideas and technologies which will sustain and renew the Czech Republic safety in changing conditions, among others taking note of a Seventh Framework Programme of EU for research,

Recently, on pages of this Military Review, several authors wrote about new scholarly discipline, the securitology (Josef Janošec, MR 3/2007). The author would like to add several ideas to this new discipline, inspired among others, D. Meadows, Limits to Growth, P. Kennedy, The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers, R. Robertson, Globalization: Social Theory and Global Culture, Albrow, M. The Global Age, and many others. Today's world actors, the U.S., People's China, Russia, India, Iran, are in their roles accompanied by institutions, such as the Unites Nations, European Union, NATO, International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, multinational monopolies, etc. Among key actors also belong established international terrorism, international crime. The common outlet of those megatrends is emerging New Multipolarity, new picture of world's configuration. Among others, at the end, the author calls for good relations with Russia, otherwise we might face energetic crisis (energy aspect of security).

What is motivation? In fact, motivation is the force behind doing something, including the desire, the need, the energy, and the actual doing of it. It is a combination of various factors. Motivations vary so much. In formal descriptions of the socio-educational model of language acquisition (Gardner), we define the whole class of variables as the social milieu. Individual differences regarded as the most eminent are as follows: intelligence, aptitude to learn foreign language, last but not least, and the pressure from social surrounding. Nowadays, the concept of integrative motivation is often referred to (Dorneyi) in discussions about the learning of another language. The present-day concept is drawn from real life, from social interactions that force a man to overcome his language barrier (Finegan). Instrumental motivation means better university/working rating, better financial reward (Sansone, Harackiewicz, Intrinsic and Extrinsic Motivation: The Search for Optimal Motivation and Performance). In spite of mentioned differences, motivation and successful acquisition of foreign language represent a complex outlet that could be tested and evaluated.

This article is a sequel to the previous disputes over financial management within the Czech Armed Forces. The origins of the first polemic article lay in gaining facts for research work, arranged by the Faculty of Economics and Management, Defence University, "Allocation and Management of Defence Sources of the CR and the Formation of Economic Thinking in the ACR". The system of planning, programming and budgeting (PPBS) was introduced into Czech forces several years ago, but the it did not worked in a way it was supposed. There were many deficiencies the PPB system suffered from. Unfortunately, the author lacks sufficient data to evaluate properly the performance of this system. He has to combine diverse data sources, booklets, statistics, data releases, to make accurate picture of a day-to-day financial military administration. In his opinion, the system is not transparent enough. He appeals for clear figures, released e.g. on army interned pages, to avert accusation of wasting public sources ...168

This is the question asked by the book ?Strategical Governance and the Czech Republic?, published by the Centre of Social and Economic Strategies, Social Science Faculty, Charles University Prague, in which also the Centre for Security Policy participates. The opening sentence says that humankind is not able to control itself. The team of authors guide us through individual items dealing with world?s political and economy situations, plans for economy growth, security and defence concepts, forming supranational security structures and finally towards depressing destiny of adopted strategy concepts and plans. If Czech leadership has any deficiency, then it is a lack of strategical dimension, concludes the reviewer.

Antiballistic defence systems could be defined as a secondary defensive response to ballistic threats, against existing, projected or planned ballistic military hardware. In a way, it is a sort of deterrence weapon, because such defence discourages opponents form the development of offensive missiles. The author of this article, the former deputy defence minister, Maj-Gen. (ret), specifies three relevant antimissiles system: ALTBM-NATO Active Layered Theatre Ballistic Missile Defence; NATO MD-NATO Missile Defence; and USA MD-USA Missile Defence. The purpose of American antiballistic defence is to counterbalance potential strokes by limited numbers of ballistic missiles, blasted off from both enemy and rogue states and those launched by accident. Allegedly, the Iranians are developing ballistic missiles with the range of 4,000 km. With the reference to the fact that the distance Prague-Teheran is about 3,400 km, and such missiles could constitute an eminent danger even for the Czech Republic, not only for the continental United States, this issue is widely discussed in Czech mass media.

Even though many activities related to intelligence and intelligence network after the end of Cold War were released and have become commonplace, classified matters are still in the centre of public's interest. In discussions, experts use various terms tied with espionage or counter-intelligence, but real differences are not too high. In the armed forces (in the frame of NATO) this question was solved by issuing the manual AJP-2, Allied Joint Intelligence, CounterIntelligence and Security Doctrine (NATO 2003). This article summarises key and basic terms used in intelligence services, including new theoretical concepts from this field. As the author writes in the introductory chapter, many experts, namely in civilian and academic fields use the same terminology, but their explanation differs. They use different definitions reflecting diverse circumstances under which they came into existence. The article was written namely as a contribution to interagency communication, among civilian and professional experts, in time when the overall security concept is changing, when military power is not the only tool to avert wide spectrum of security threats of 21st century.

The end of the Cold War was the most important factor determinating political and security realities in the world. Consequent development has gradually led to the significant reengagement of the former Warsaw Pact member states and other military alliances, especially into all form of peace operations. The Czech Republic is following the path common for the other countries in Euroatlantic region, being motivated by common struggle for enlargement this area of stability, security, democracy and peaceful resolution of crises. Hand in hand, with growing experiences from peace operations, the Czech Republic reflects specificities of national security and military strategies, as well as the level of declared military ambitions. Principal changes the Czech forces undergoing now are aiming at fulfilment basic principles of the Security Strategy of the Czech Republic. Participation of the Czech Republic in peace operations and operations outside the republic is becoming the most predominant form of deployment of our armed forces. Therefore, peace operations studies are more pressing today than ever before in the past.

The article is focused on the Czech military bases during mission abroad and introduces new term "Life Cycle of Military Base". Every system has its own successive stages through which it passes; concept that compares the cyclical nature of organizations, systems, is called life cycle. The Reach-Back concept divides lifetime of the military base into seven phases: Assignment (task, goals), Preparation, Proposal (draft), Designing, Building, Running and Cancelling. The definition and description of all phases of the Life Cycle of Military Bases is an important contribution to solving series of problems connected with designing, building, running and cancelling of military bases during mission abroad. Dividing into separate sections contributes to the well-mastered supervision of base, as it indicates factual structures of individual stages of daily routine of the base and thus it lowers the risks of neglecting some activities.

This leading article deals with the sphere of strategy and defence policy. The essay is an output of scholarly work and therefore it is summarizing and evaluating problems in question with professional recommendations. First, the author draws our attention to various concepts of security and underlines national differences backed by national histories. Security concepts have their sources in deep analyses of potential threats and corresponding scenarios, with specific bias to Czech environment. He openly expresses his critical opinions on contemporary security documents, for lack of political security directions, as politicians in general have little knowledge of security and defence problems. In his opinion, the possible outcome lies in a partnership and cooperation with academics outside military and government structures, experts and members of security community, whose expert opinions could help namely to form long-term security concepts.