Journal of Security and Sustainability Issues

The mass influx of refugees from Ukraine to Poland, caused by Russia’s aggression on February 24, 2022, has resulted in the application of solutions in the field of refugee law on a massive, unprecedented scale. Previously developed Polish regulations regarding the rules for granting protection to this category of people turned out to be insufficient, and the legislator decided to immediately develop new solutions for the protection of refugees from Ukraine, which were included in the Act of March 12, 2022 on assistance to citizens of Ukraine in relation to an armed conflict on the territory of that country. The provisions of this legal act constitute lex specialis in relation to the Act of June 13, 2003 on granting protection to foreigners in the territory of the Republic of Poland. The article defines a general outline of the so-called refugee law, also from a historical perspective, and includes an analysis of Polish regulations in the field of granting temporary protection to Ukrainian citizens in relation to the European Union standards. The correctness of such solutions was also evaluated.

The protection of cultural heritage is seen as an important element of a country’s cultural policy. The article describes the nature of the threats posed by Russian aggression on Ukrainian cultural heritage and the destruction of cultural property. The article was aimed at highlighting the consequences of Russia’s deliberate destruction of Ukrainian cultural heritage and an interdisciplinary look at its value and protection during the contemporary armed conflict. This assessment can serve as a starting point for a discussion on the challenges related to the protection of cultural heritage during a potential armed conflict in Central and Eastern Europe. Drawing on practical examples of Ukraine, solutions were proposed to improve the protection of cultural heritage in Poland.

Wars and armed conflicts have accompanied mankind from the beginning of history and belong to the category of social phenomena. They became a permanent part of the historical process and are changing with it. Throughout history, wars have changed, as have views on the phenomenon of war, on war theories and strategic concepts. These views were and are a derivative of the progress of civilization. Since the turn of the 20th and 21st centuries, societies and nations have been the cause and target of wars to the larger extent than countries. Territory and power are no longer the primary causes and goals of armed conflicts. The analysis of these changes allows us to call these phenomena “new wars”. The article presents the issues of changes and transformations of wars and armed conflicts. It was stated that defining war as a political act was no longer sufficient. It was also established that in a changing world, new forms of war existed and would continue to emerge. The classic war, however, is not yet gone.

Despite rich experience indicating that waging wars is risky and not very ‘profitable’, particularly from the last decades’ perspective, and it also has a demoralizing effect on societies engaged in the conflict strengthening the tendency to aggression, nationalism, at the same time destroying the natural environment, it is difficult to imagine the world without an armed confrontation in the future. Such a course of action is proven by ‘the Ukrainian scenario’, or the situation in the Middle East. Motives pushing people to armed confrontations are quite complex and do not result from a simple need of domination and possession. War is quite closely connected with the domain of the sacred. Violence and religion are placed in close neighbourhood. Thus can values represented by great monotheist religions be ‘useful’ in the conducted polemological-irenological discourse and in the process of building a desired international security system? Do the components fostering war aggression dominate over ‘pacifist reflection’ in Judaic-Christian and Islamic spirituality? One may risk a statement that religion regardless of time and latitude, is not an indifferent factor from the point of view of waged conflicts.

The article presents an in-depth identification of the polemological aspects of research on the subject of wars and armed conflicts of the 21st century. Moreover, it discusses the evolution, scale and nature of contemporary, as well as future wars and armed conflicts. The article refers to the essence, properties and characteristics of ‘new wars’ and the possibility of studying them by using appropriate instruments. Based on the conducted research, an attempt is made at forecasting wars and armed conflicts of the future. The article also highlights the activities and functioning of contemporary research institutes and facilities engaged in the analysis of war and armed conflicts, and focuses on the legitimacy and needs of implementing the polemological approach to the research of the presented subject in the present global-informational security conditions.