Journal of Security and Sustainability Issues

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 deals with the problem of future development threats based on the methodology of industry foresight. As an empirical basis for this direction of forecasting, the authors study the mining and metallurgical complex of the Republic of Kazakhstan as a leading factor in the development of the entire national economy. The study is a pilot and focuses on assessing the risks that have formed that could pose a serious threat to the development of the industry, the economy and the country as a whole in the future. Summarizing the world experience in applying the foresight methodology, the authors use it to predict the security and sustainability of development in the medium-term. Using the risk mapping method, the authors identify safety zones in the development trends of the mining and metallurgical industry. The assessment of threats and risks also highlights the leading actors that affect the development of the industry. The main risks for Kazakhstan’s mining and metallurgical enterprises are the lack or shortage of local labor and its low skills. Automation of production processes and digitalization of production are becoming the leading trends in the development of the industry. The problem of improving the quality of workforce training and mastering the necessary skills by specialists is a serious threat to the development of the industry. The authors suggest using foresight tools not only to assess risks, but also to prevent their development into future threats.

Information today is becoming increasingly important, especially in the era of progressive computerization and advancements in the area of computer technology. At the same time, there are also increasingly more threats to this category, of which the most important are criminal offenses against information protection. These are enforced by competent state authorities whose activity is necessary to maintain the proper level of security. The article deals mainly with the phenomenon of crime involving infringement of information, and its scale, using for this purpose the statistical data collected by the Polish National Police Headquarters.

Security of societies has become one of urgent issues in contemporary world. Too frequently we started encountering one or another form of malicious behavior, criminal activities or terrorism. New and complex threats highlight the need for further synergies and closer cooperation at all levels. Awareness, preparedness and resilience of societies emerge as key preconditions of further secure and sustainable economic development and general well-being. A special attention in those conditions has to be paid to development of theoretically grounded approach to protection of critical infrastructure (CIP), damage or disruption of which can be immensely harmful to unprepared and therefore vulnerable institutions and society. The aim of this paper is to lay theoretical foundations for theoretically grounded approach towards research in CIP area, in order to formulate, ultimately, an approach towards action, which, employing leadership societal stakeholders would allow to enhance awareness of society actors about the threats, i.e, to develop ability to recognize, prevent, and, in case of disaster, to resist to consequences of critical infrastructure infringement. Hence, enhanced resilience of society to critical infrastructure infringement is and ultimate goal of fostering of leadership for critical infrastructure protection.