Challenges to national defence in contemporary geopolitical situation

This study addresses key issues related to the technical protection and restoration of critical railway infrastructure in the Czech Republic when dealing with military and non-military crisis situations. These issues can be divided into problems of organizational nature and technical problems. The study demonstrates how these key issues can be resolved and what steps are required. Ensuring the operational readiness of railway infrastructure is an integral part of successfully managing crisis situations and securing military transport, as well as transport for the national economy and the population.

The aim of this paper is to analyze the legal definition, organizational status, and forms of deployment of the Armed Forces of the Slovak Republic within the crisis management system and during declared states of emergency. Methodologically, the paper is based on a normative analysis of applicable legislation, a content analysis of relevant academic sources, and a synthesis of findings derived from practical implementation experience. The results identify persistent ambiguities in competences and limitations of the legal framework governing the domestic deployment of the Armed Forces of the Slovak Republic, particularly in the areas of command, coordination, and the interpretation of assistance-related tasks. The paper therefore contributes to the professional debate on the need for doctrinal and normative anchoring of civil-military cooperation under the conditions of the Slovak Republic. The findings indicate the need to refine the legal framework in order to increase the effectiveness of crisis management and civil-military cooperation. The main contribution of the paper lies in a generalizable and systematic linkage between the normative and operational dimensions of the deployment and functioning of the armed forces within the state crisis management system.

The primary concern of this article is to review the knowledge and ability of people to act to protect themselves and others in the face of various risks and hazards, and to manage accident and crisis situations. Relevant issues include the needs and requirements of emergency situations, people’s ability to respond to them, and factors that affect coping ability. The selected sub-areas are practiceoriented and defined in terms of real-world problems rather than theories or scientific concepts. One of the purposes of choosing to structure the review of risk, accident and crisis management psychology in this way is to emphasize the importance of human limitations and capabilities as an element in all areas of activity and responsibility. This approach, in turn, assumes that the review contains a broad theoretical base and multifaceted approaches, which are necessarily treated here rather generically.

This paper focuses on terrorist attacks carried out by so-called ‘lone wolves’ or ‘lone actors’. It provides an analytical evaluation of the basic characteristics of these attackers and discusses possible access to their identification in society. To create the profile of a ‘typical’ lone wolf, we collected information from a database of lone wolves who committed their terrorist attacks in the United States, Canada, the European Union, Switzerland, Norway and Australia from 1998 to 2016. Based on these data, it was demonstrated that lone wolves are not homogenous group, therefore, there is no one ‘typical’ lone wolf. Instead, three main groups of lone wolves were identified: 1) lone wolves with a criminal past, 2) lone wolves with a mental illness and 3) young lone wolves coming from minority groups in the country. These characteristics could be used as an auxiliary tool by state security forces during identification of potential lone wolf terrorists.

The article discusses the problems of the limitations of the human rights in the situations of crisis. The measures of crisis management are undertaken both in international and national levels, but the definitions of crisis and crisis management are rarely provided in legal acts. The article further discusses the theories of national security and their connection with the assurance of human rights. The permanent and temporary limitations of the human rights provided in international and national legal acts are discussed in the context of the measures taken in crisis management.