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The artillery of the Army of the CR is indispensable part of Czech armed forces. It will take part in operational activities, in the frame of EBAO concept (Effect Based Approach to Operations), acting in contact with various task forces. To meet those objectives, it must reach highest level of modulability. The article depicts all variants of effective augmentation by artillery firepower, artillery reconnaissance, and close artillery support. It enumerates all possible combinations of this reinforcement. Backed by those acquired specifics, the authors further extrapolate demands for automated control system of artillery fire support.

The idea of this enquiry into Czech Army logistics was to prove that even under hard conditions originated in permanently changing army concepts, the army logistics still keeps its high standard and responsibility. During transformation, an appropriate organization structure has been created, with working mechanism of logistics support, using motivated and rationale source exploitation. The purpose of an array of transformation in defence sector was to introduce not only new and effective army structure, compatible with NATO armies, but also to change the system of fi nancing forces. The funding ought to be more economical. The article is backed by a longterm study and observation of logistics development in defence sector.

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.

The basic task of the post-1989 period was to formulate a security policy and a strategy ensuing from it. The strategy had to be based on a synthesis of the international policy concept, defence concept and internal security concept to ensure that defence would not be seen solely as the task of the army and the Ministry of Defence, but of the whole state and society-of every citizen. In this article his author evaluates some aspects of the armed forces transformation in process of adaptation. He assesses these changes with regard to approved strategic and conceptual documents that significantly determined this gradual transformation process. He identifies both same of its successes as well as failures. The study does not have a clearly analytical and evaluative character; rather it is a combination of factual information drawn from official sources, country's practical security policy as they appeared in contemporary Czech press, and opinions of the author.

The article sums up the evolution of the Czech officers' qualification structure since the start of downsizing in 1990 and provides an outlook beyond 2010. At the early 90's graduate education used to be only for officers. A total of 65 % were holding university degrees. Today this number reaches 98 %, with 3 % holding Ph.D. or CSc. degrees. There is also an increase in numbers of WOs with graduate education, it is 4 %, despite the fact that such qualification is not necessary for them. Authors discuss this evolution and compare it with the ageing of the Czech population and overall academic education system. The gradual decrease of people aged 20-24 till 2020 is an important challenge to reforming recruitment and education of junior officers. The reform is needed to avoid deficits in quality junior officers and consequently the lack of personnel selection for military education at the University of Defence.

The author summarizes in several items the history of service PT both before 1990, in the 90s, and finally at the beginning of this century. What tasks are in front of us? First we must create legal basis for a new conceptual frame of service PT; secondly we must form new methods of drills and training for servicemen in special PT skills, with risk exercises, corresponding to warfare and combat situations, backed by respective legislation. The author hopes that our own practice and experiences from abroad of MoD officials will certainly help to create new alternative concepts together with indispensable recreational PT for soldiers, including appropriate forms of physical training for women in uniform.

The Shadow of Nucler War over Europe (19451968). In spite of general expectations, even after the end of the Cold War the world can't get rid of atomic threat. Interest in nuclear problems has increased in the last few years. Among new books dealing with this problem belongs also the monograph by Josef Fučík "The Shadow of Nucler War over Europe: The Strategy of Military Blocks, Operational Plans and the Role of the Czechoslovak People's Army in Central European Theatre in 1945-1968". In the 60's, the last century, the danger of nuclear confrontation was extremely high. The Soviet Union accumulated large atomic potential, the fact that disabled American strategy of flexible response. On the other side, this fact led the Americans to strengthen conventional forces, not welcomed by American Western Allies. Nowadays we can see similar situation, in case of unwillingness of West European nations to support American activities, e.g. in Afghanistan.

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.

At the beginning of August, Defence Minister Alexander Vondra announced his intention to give rise to the White Report of Defence as a document constituting clear vision of country's defence. The Paper will constitute a major overhaul of Czech defence and security policy and will set out the path to more modern, compact and reactive security and defence forces. By cutting the overall number of defence personnel, restructuring the defence estate will achieve cost reductions allowing to address more effectively the challenges and threats of the globalized world. It will allocate a substantial budget for defence, in line with the priorities and choices made for her defence capabilities. It will further reflect themes not mentioned before, such as relations between Common European Defence Policy and NATO alliance, new dimensions of civic security in cases of natural disasters, pandemic, or last but not least - terrorist attacks. The Czech White Report is going to make good use of similar documents of Allied nations.

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.

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 outcomes of battles and fighting are significantly influenced by weather conditions. Together with other important circumstances they decide a chosen combat strategy, operational art, warfare tactics, and ways of personnel and vehicles deployment; consequently the volume of losses or casualties. The authors recount the establishing of weather service within individual arms, creating fi rst weather charts, they give details on situation in pre-war republic, during WWII, in the 50s, even after the Velvet Revolution in 1989. They mention the names of eminent personalities of Czech Hydrometeorological Service to be honoured and remembered. We must also remind that our Hydrometeorological Service works not only in favour of the ACR, but also for other NATO countries.

At that time, the base for plural societies in Eastern Europe was founded. Poland, the Czech Republic and Hungary joined NATO defence alliance. Serious global threats of economic, military, ecology, social, ethnic, religious, criminal characters were lasting. The important question of proliferation of mass destruction weapons was raised. The analyses of security situations in Europe and the World respectively proved that armed conflicts were mostly internal, in a form of civic wars, but demographically endangering bordering countries. Those threats were only discussed, namely nobody fully realized the threat of terrorism. Defence budgets were reduced, all people wanted to profit from the so-called peace dividends. Czech army was loyal to the state; it was not misused in inner political conflicts, which was regarded as something normal by the majority of Czech public. But there were many problems left, especially the role and engagement of the ACR in the following century.

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.

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.

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.

The article is oriented towards making up language curriculum at the Faculty of Military Technology, Defence University. It is a follow-up to earlier essays published in Vojenské rozhledy 2006-2007, dealing with language preparation of learners enrolled at the Defence University, i.e. at educational institution with technical bias. The authors analyse the optimalization of current schedule used for teaching English language. Data were collected by means of questionnaire poll. The cluster of respondents covered both teachers giving lessons under mentioned scheme and university students preparing themselves in accordance with tested scheme. The results reached proved the necessity to form language curriculum at several levels and concept of flat language teaching.

The author, director of military hospital base, reacts favourably to the article mentioned above. He would like to add something from the practical point of military commander. In his unit, there is a deficiency of attested graduated surgeons, whereas there are a lot of graduated nurses, rescue workers, because of a wide offer of civil colleges and universities. They study in their leisure time and thus gain higher educational background. In consequence, his unit does not need graduates from Defence University in Brno. He comes to the conclusion that necessary commissioned officers could be recruited from among ranks of non-commissioned officers or sergeants, by means of additional schooling and scholarships, or by recruiting graduates from civilian colleges and universities.

The article depicts the methods of logistical support to combat units of the German Federal Forces (Bundeswehr), deployed in Afghanistan. Professionally trained and prepared personnel are capable to meet requirements of forces in ISAF operations. The centralizations of composite logistical services can guarantee the lowering of payments and expenses in logistics. Such arrangement makes logistic activities more economical, namely by taking over of mechanisms used in civilian economy sphere. This method is called "focused logistics". It is used for logistical support of small contingents. Its characteristic feature is interconnection of logistical data and transport technologies, rapid crisis response, and the ability of logistical support during all combat and non-combat activities.

In spite of the fact that it is a new concept, it presents one of key methods of international engagement in crisis areas the EU prefers. Its main components are crises prevention and securing stabilization. Security tasks are composite problems solving one of main state functions: to guard external and internal security together with principles of civil control. This essay among others aims to explain practicability of the EU's concept of preventive engagement as a tool of implementation of the European Security Strategy, further it describes European concept for crisis management missions in the field of civilian administration supporting security and justice. At the end there are some recommendations for the Czech Republic how to form capacities for EU missions and for the transformation of Czech security sectors.

This is another publication by Mr. Jan Eichler. It consits of three parts: the fi rst one defines nearly three dozens of basic terms in the field of security, the second one deals with wars in the 90?s, and finally third part concentrates on terrorism. The book has evidently pedagogical bias, with explanatory character. Under the influence of foremost sociologist Ulrich Beck, Jan Eichler interprets risks as ?social phenomena? derived from threats. The author also evaluates wars in Africa, Asia and Latin America, in Serbia or the Persian Gulf, which took place in 1990-2001. There were 120 armed confl icts, with 94 % victims from among civil population (compared with 50 % of WWII and 15 % WWI). In those wars bellingerent parties deployed weapons of all sorts, with the exception of WMD. As far as international terrorism is concerned, the author sees as its primary characterists the absence of warning before terrorist attacks are accomplished.

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.

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.

War game is a simulation of military operations intended to train military commanders or to test a proposed strategy. It is a game in which model soldiers are used to create battles, in order to study tactics. This article illustrates the importance of War Game COAs (course of action). It was tested against opposing force COAs. Such exercise will help to identify advantages and disadvantages and the key elements of execution planning for each COA. The lesson learned during OHQ CZE/SVK BG EU Staff Exercises that took place in Olomouc from January 19th, to January 23rd, and from February 16th, to February 20th, 2009 is that war-gaming (although time consuming) is something closer to "reality" than the "theory" in doctrines. The war-gaming practices teamwork, facilitates team-building and enables to share mental model COA. Commanders and their staff ought to be engaged in simulations and war games more frequently. All information and sources for this paper were drawn from unclassified materials.

Relations between NATO and the Russian Federation are one of key factors influencing overall policy of the whole North Atlantic Alliance. They are complicated and sophisticated questions still predisposed by the heritage of the Cold War.But there are mutual fears, common security problems they both have to counter. NATO policy must be established upon present-day reality. It is self-evident that there are common fields of common interests in which mutual balance must be reached. There are among others: armament, preventing arms proliferation, halting proliferation of nuclear, biological and chemical agents, antimissiles defence, counter-terrorism, drugs smuggling, open sea security, common peace operations. After two years the Russian-Georgia war started, military cooperation between Russia and NATO was re-established. Separate problem in midterm prospects presents the solving of conflict in Afghanistan.

Since 2008 national security institutions such as police, fi re brigades or armed forces have been confronted with the lack of manpower. There is impending risk of decreasing in population between 15-24 years, and as those key executive institutions are based upon employees' principle, this fact might disenable each national security institution, supposing this risk would be underestimated. Recruiting campaigns are not sufficient enough. In the near future, this is probably going to infl uence so far strict criteria for recruiting military personnel. According to the author, demographic ageing thus represents one of risks, but up to now the offi cial documents by Czech MoD have not reflected this situation.

The term "military materiel" covers equipment and supplies, i.e. articles which soldiers need in order to carry out tasks (clothing, radios, tools, weapons, vehicles). Guarding, attendance, maintenance and preservation, transport, storage, cost a lot of money that could be used in another way, so the Czech Army must sell them out. The author quotes legal rules and military manual dealing with this matter. He differentiates between solely military items (weapon systems) and those that may be used for civilian purposes. Unfortunately, military manuals do not precisely specify those categories. At the end he demands developing legal norms giving a definition of military materiel, including the list of such materiel, in a form e.g. an amendment, which could be updated every year.

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

The first part of the article defines notions of the competence, the power, and the authority. Next part of the article deals with the assertion of the power and authority. Those terms are not the same. Whereas the power is universal, the authority of a commander is performed only within the Army of the Czech Republic (ACR), it does not go beyond. The authority presents the "right" or "duty"; the power is the capacity to implement authority, to fulfil intentions. Business, labour, educational, governmental and military systems depend on a hierarchy to carry out specialized tasks. Therefore the authorities are tied with individual levels of mentioned hierarchies. In the professional forces the formal authority is not enough. Professional warrior is an expert that can't be managed in ways the soldiers used to be, in the former conscript army. It is necessary for the commander to exercise natural authority, based upon knowledge, skills, all-round proficiency. Formal aspects of his authority are only secondary.

Some time ago, this review published an article by Mgr. Antonín Konrád in which he asked the readers to discuss the problems tied with military PT. Training is not mere physical exercises, weight training and the like. Physical resistance, endurance is necessary precondition for effective developing physical performance and locomotive powers. Soldier's physical qualification must be taken on the whole, as individually connected dispositions, covering all layers of meaning of soldier's life. The author proposes to strictly differentiate among service obligatory PT, selective PT, and off-service PT. administrative and draft commands came into existence. The core changes took place in 1949 when regional military commands were established, further changes followed: in 1954 regional military commands were remodelled into regional military directorates. Their subordination was also altered. As of January 1, 1992, the regional military directorates were renamed higher administrative commands. Updated Act No. 218/1999 (Military Law) established 35 regional directorates and the Main Draft Centre Tabor (dealing with recruiting, mobilization and manning). Under the Act 585/2004, a total of 14 Regional Military Command were established, with the aim to manage crisis situations, organize mobilization, manning the forces, taking care of military veterans, retired servicemen, including the support of regional military clubs. The latest document defining the scope of authority and organizational structure of regional military commands was published in November 3,2006, taking effect as of January 1, 2007.