Journal of Security and Sustainability Issues

By exploiting the potential of social media, disinformation has become an important element of warfare. The region of Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) is particularly vulnerable to disinformation, primarily from Russia. One of the reasons for Russia’s activities in this region’s infosphere is that most CEE countries are members of the European Union and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). In this context, Russian disinformation activities aimed at the Three Seas Initiative (3SI) are particularly interesting. The image of the 3SI created in the media is crucial, for it translates into how the public understands, perceives and recalls this format of cooperation. The article aims to reconstruct the image of the 3SI in cases of Russian disinformation identified by the European External Action Service within the EUvsDisinfo project. The article’s methodology is based on a qualitative content analysis of disinformation cases identified by EUvsDisinfo. The article identifies four main frames of disinformation targeting the 3SI, showing that Russian disinformation is focused on undermining the credibility and integrity of this cooperation, both among Initiative countries and between them and their international partners.

The aim of the research was to assess the possibility of using various types of civil aircraft for terrorist attacks. The main methods were: analysis and synthesis, analogy, generalization, comparison and inference. The research was based on the analysis of the literature as well as normative and doctrinal documents. Scientific observation where used, which focused on practical examples and attempts to use civil aircraft by terrorists to attack civilian objects from 2001 to 2020. Considering the large diversity of each types of aircraft, a criterion analysis was used to evaluate them in terms of their suitability for terrorist attacks. As a result of the conducted analytical research, three groups of aircraft were selected, which are particularly predisposed as potential tools of terrorist attacks on civilian objects. The first group consists of large-size structures such as passenger and transport planes, the use of which in attacks may cause the greatest losses, both material and human. The next group consists of small-sized light and very light airplanes, microlight, unmanned aerial vehicles and radio-controlled models. This type of aircraft and flying machines are in a period of dynamic development and, at the same time, of great interest on the part of terrorist groups. It was also found that in the case of attacks using explosives or taking into account aviation fuel (which, as a result of an aircraft collision with an object, usually explodes), greater possibilities give large aircraft, such as passenger and transport aircrafts.

The article describes development and technical modernization of the Polish Armed Forces after 2014. It explores the linkage between development and modernization efforts and evolving military threat posed by Russia. Discussion on evolution of military threat posed by Russia constitutes a starting point for further analyses. Then, a comparative analysis of development and technical modernization plans adopted for Polish Armed Forces after 2014 and tangible results of modernization efforts undertaken during this period is presented. The article concludes with predictions on sustainability of development and modernization of the Polish Armed Forces.

The subject of this article concerns the safety of mass events and is dictated by their increasing popularity. Mass events are organized at various levels of the territorial division and have a very diverse range. Their safe organization and course are important from the point of view of the country’s internal security. The authors provide novel insights into risk management peculiarities of mass events in designed to prevent possible terrorist activities.

9/11 made terrorism a part of everyday life on a global basis, attacking civilisation as a whole. As a result, the activity of terrorist organisations reduces people’s sense of security even in their everyday lives, by randomly attacking high public density targets with a huge emotional and publicity impact. The states cannot guarantee security through their law enforcement agencies alone, as the sources of danger have multiplied and become more unpredictable. Therefore, it is more important than ever to involve communities, social organisations, economic and market actors in maintaining common security. Private security thus plays by now an extremely important role in completing public order and security. The radicalisation trend within the terrorist organisations results in a growing number of internal terrorism threats. Given that terrorists aim to choose targets with a likely “success” of their acts, it is important to highlight those whose partial, temporary or total downtime entails consequences which would also make other infrastructures inoperative. Those who from these aspects turn to be the most important, and their continuous and well-functioning operation are essential to the operation of other infrastructures, are called critical infrastructures. If we put the above phenomena together, a clear conflict emerges: critical infrastructure protection, although in most cases not state owned, is also a common security issue, protected mostly by private security services, employing people mainly trained for private security tasks. Our article highlights this problem introducing the scientific background, also suggesting a possible solution for evaluation.