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Relations between a military and a civilian society belong to the core issue of civil-military studies. This article reflects main ideas and concepts used in theoretical and analytical literature, including seminar works by Samuel Huntington and Morris Janowitz. A military culture, military ethics and influence of new technologies, full-volunteer army and new missions on military culture are discussed. An abstract term "military" can change very significantly in accordance with actual military culture, perceptible to the fact how civilian society accepts military values. Therefore, not only size and equipment determine how particular armed forces look like. The author introduces the term Constabulary Force reflecting the idea that primary purpose of forces today are low-intensity conflicts and operations other than war.

Although private military companies like the former Blackwater were regarded as a relatively new phenomenon in international security, their history is not new. The participation of private individuals, and /or groups of private individuals, soldiers of fortune, in "foreign" armed conflicts is at least as old as the history of wars by itself. It is impossible to open a debate about the scope and possible impact of the current use of private military and security companies without knowing and evaluating their long-term historical developments. The goal of this study is therefore to map the history of the use of private military forces, their involvement in various conflicts, services they offer, among others, from the point of international law.

Communications in which information of any kind, especially orders and decisions, are conveyed from one command, person, or place to another, are basic feature of all civilian organizations, namely as far as managerial work is concerned. In military, they are used within the armed forces, usually by means of electronic equipment, including communications security equipment, organic to the tactical forces. They are implemented in integrated surrounding NEC (Network Enabled Capability) by means of widening and updating field communication system of the AČR. NEC together with other key operational capacities will enable to change information power into higher operational effectivity and strength of Czech armed forces.

Keynesian economics argues that private sector decisions sometimes lead to inefficient macroeconomic outcomes and therefore advocates active policy responses by the public sector, including monetary policy actions and fiscal policy actions by the government to stabilize output over the business cycle. This paper defines the core of Keynesian economics in the mirror of defence expenditures and their influence on country's economy growth. The main attention is paid to the analysis of military-industrial complex and its pressure on armed forces, as one of most important factors introducing a danger of the so-called militarization of both state economy of advanced industrial countries and their social life.

The problem of forming military decisions lies in the very core of this article. Among others, there are a lot of highly unpredictable impact factors; there are many assessment criteria for individual variants of solving problems. Criteria of qualitative characters, and various interpretations of data information demand quality decisions; they are sometimes difficult to understand and even contradictory. The commanders and their staffs must be well educated, trained and experienced. To meet this precondition we must ensure quality of career training, supported by practical experiences. The staff work must be practiced regularly, with the use of various scenarios, supplemented by historical studies of past or recent fi ghts and battles.

One of most discussed themes in this field is also a critique of unfinished, non-stable structure of master documents, e.g. Security Strategy of the Czech Republic. They are often told to be obsolete. The latest document, the White Paper on Defence, Critical responses are not quite justified. There are a lot of good ideas, innovations. Many things have been done, many set tasks have been met at the level of Defence Ministry. Positive effects of results reached are obvious. They are summarized in the White Paper mentioned above. The only danger lies in arbitrary decisions by political management, including employing variable means of their implementation, wanton interpretation of leading defence principles, low respect to approved strategical decisions. We must name mentioned handicaps as a first step towards the real and true remedy.

The professional base for tactical and operational levels of US ground forces and German Federal Armed Forces are the following manuals: US Army Field Manual 100/5 "Operations", since 2001 being labelled as "Field Manual 3-0", and German HDv 100/100 "Truppenfuhrung 2000". Both manuals were drafted in a closed cooperation. The basic principles of German manual Truppenfuhrung 2000 were imitated and copied by the Netherlands armed forces and partly, to a certain measure, also by other NATO nations. Rules of Field Manual 3-0 were tested in peace operations, in the fight against international terrorism in Afghanistan and during the first phase of Second War in Iraq. In fact, the operations of US forces indirectly proved practicability and effectiveness of nearly identical German field rules and manuals, consequently command principles, including those of the so-called nation building. Based upon an article by MG Christian E.O. Millotat in 3/2006 Osterreichische Militärische Zeitschrift, No 3/2006.

Michal Sorbaňa, Ph.D. The article deals with contemporary conditions of automated Fire Control System called ASPRO which was introduced into the ACR in the late 90s. It is a classical computer network of enforced computers with commercial operational system Windows 95, with special applications for command, control, communication, intelligence at the level of artillery regiment. It is the so-called C3I system that is divided into three program modifications designated for individual components ASPRO system: Artillery Tactical Computer, FO Tactical Computer, Gun Tactical Computer, and Meteo Tactical Computer. The connections and ties among individual elements of system are depicted on several detailed charts and schemes. The issue was discussed at the Artillery Conference in January 2007; the visions of ASPRO support to mechanized units were presented by the Chief of Joint Force Artillery. This essay covers only the main elements (procedures) of above mentioned problems.

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.

This article presents the findings of the survey being done during the evaluation and assessment of EU Battle Groups, their missions, roles, tasks, stemming from the requirements set by the EU Crisis Management Concept. The paper does not discuss in detail variants EU Battle Groups, but concentrates on their historical background, basic characteristics, structure, EU political-military ambitions, scenarios, reaction time, tasks, standards, training and certification, Battle Groups commitments, concept and implementation, achievements. The article also includes recommendations for the Czech Armed Forces that are currently involved in the formation of the EU Battle Group CZE/SVK. This article aims to record progress to date and to indicate challenges ahead. All information and data for this paper were drawn from unclassified sources.

Military Intelligence plays important part in national defence, indicating particular kinds of potential threats to the Republic or Allied partners. Its effectiveness mainly consists in evaluating the security situation continuously and in exchanging of intelligence information between our services and the Allies, with the aim to detect any potential threats and to eliminate a possibility of surprise in time. According to Act No. 153/1994, concerning the intelligence services, its activities are strictly limited by law. It gains information from open sources (OSINT), by means of signal intelligence (SIGINT), human intelligence (HUMINT), and by using intelligence equipment and tools (IMINT, imagery intelligence). The author proposes to establish central organizational unit, in order to organize, assess, and evaluate individual intelligence branches, their intelligence support to individual target addressees. It should be allowed to reallocate both material and financial sources in form of proposals, reflecting developments of individual intelligence branches.

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.

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 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 key term in this article is "war economy" It is used to describe the contingencies undertaken by the state to mobilise its economy for war production. Often confused term "resource conflicts" needs explaining. First, there are raw materials, mineral resources (diamonds, precious metals). Another group of resources are critical items, water supplies, and fertile lands. This article concentrates on conflicts provoked by the abundance of natural sources, not by their insufficiency. Their driving motive is "greed-based" model (the effort to take over the control over lands, crude oils). Another model is "grievance-based" model, based upon the feeling of hate, having its roots in e.g. underprivileged position of certain part of population) tied with worsening economy). "War economy" got a new meaning. It moved far away from Clauzewitz's paradigm, the sense of such war is in itself, the war is protracted, it is war for war's sake.

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.

This article covers the EUFOR RD Congo operation preparation phase and provides information on Military Strategic Planning Process, Military Operational Planning, Collaborative Planning, EU OHQ Potsdam activation and Force Generation Process. It describes planning period to highlight a pivotal role of training and education. Operation EUFOR RD CONGO was the EU second military intervention in the RDC, following Operation Artemis in 2003. The EUFOR RD CONGO mission was to support MONUC during running election process, in accordance with the UN Security Council Resolution 1671, authorizing the temporary deployment of an EU force in the RDC. The views expressed in this assessment are those of the author and do not reflect the official policy or position of EU Military Structure or the Czech MoD. All information and data for this paper were drawn from unclassified sources.

The new American doctrinal document called National Security Strategy (NSS 2010) was released in May 2010. Generally, NSS documents outline major national security concerns and plans. The NSS 2010 lays out a strategic approach for advancing American interests, including the security of the American people, growing U.S. economy, and international order that can address 21st century challenges. President Obama is stressing global leadership, dependent on strong and responsible American leadership directing it to ensure other nations follow. He urged Americans to revitalize their own economic, moral and innovative strength to continue to lead the world. The essay by Mr. Eichler is divided into two parts: first one deals with Bush's security policy, and second one deals with documents issued during Obama's presidency. There is a departure from Bush's security strategy that had led to two asymmetric wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. There are interesting nuances. The NSS 2010 for example declares the intention to build deeper and more effective partnerships with key centres of influence-including China, India, which represents among others Obama's retreat from policy of unilateralism.

The important part of the forces transformation deals with the problem reducing in numbers of officers, namely field officers and general corps in the Czechoslovak Armed Forces and lately the Army of the Czech Republic. The main cause of this reduction was new concept of military career, as before the transformation it used to be a lifelong profession. The downsizing started in 1990 and it ought to have been finished by the end of the first period of the Czech Armed Forces Reform, as of 2008/12/31/, but it appears that downsizing is endless. The author quotes figures concerning numbers of officers; several rank charts and tablets with corresponding NATO and Czech grades respectively are used to demonstrate veracity of his statements. According to Lt.Col. Pernica, the downsizing is going to continue but no one knows how many officers for the all-volunteer Czech armed forces will be enough.

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 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 history, German armed forces have been transformed into a modern, international recognized force, so has its logistics. Readiness became a major issue and soldiers suddenly had to be prepared for a broad variety of international missions, predictably supported by military logistics that newly cooperates with a private sector. The main logistics control and management centre is situated in the port city Wilhelmshaven. The Centre is responsible for planning logistics operations, their coordination both home and abroad. The newly created department for supply chain management is going to streamline supplies, to increase efficiency of the whole supply process. By means of several schemes the authors explain flows of materiel and supply routes tied with civilian companies (e.g. HIL GmbH).

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.

It is a point at which attacking forces are unable to continue their attack or even defend themselves, because do casualties, shortages of fuel, ammunition and rations, and sheer physical exhaustion. This sequel article deals with the theory of the operational art focusing on the culminating point operational concept. The article emanates from Carl von Clausewitz's ideas and concepts described in his book "On War", doctrinal publications analysis and study projects of the operational art theorists. It treats conditions influencing achievement of the culminating point on single levels of war-strategic, operational and tactical and highlights coherences and factors having fundamental influences on culmination. The article is accompanied by several graphs describing this theory in detail. Key words: Culmination, Culminating Point, Zeroing, Intelligence Preparation of the Battlespace, Campaign Planning and Developing Operations.

Problems of crossing abilities are most often defined as the ability of wheeled and tracked vehicles to move on damaged, unrepaired communications or terrain. This ability is determined by the construction of vehicle, terrain qualities, and their classes. Less known are problems of reverse driving. In this case, we do not examine crossing ability, but investigate the capacity of terrain to decompose an overall load of moving vehicle. It is a part of tasks performed by engineer reconnaissance for force movements, as troops make use not only neat communications, but also rough terrains, off main routes. Diagnoses of this kind are performed by the Department of Engineer Technologies, Defence University Brno. Many examples are presented in the American Field Manual "Planning and Design of Roads, Airfields, and Heliports in the Theater of Operations-Road Design".

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.

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.

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.