Defence and strategy

Dear readers,

This issue presents four articles, two of which deal with concepts related to security and two address issues associated with armed conflicts. Let me introduce them.

First of all, we bring you a paper from a team of authors led by Vendula Divišová. Their article is a contribution to the conceptualization of the resilience of the armed forces. It is characterised by a multidimensional approach that focuses on grasping the ‘soft’ aspects at the psychological, institutional, social, and national levels.

Jan Břeň is the leader of the team of authors of the second article. In their contribution, they focus on social, economic, and security-political causes of terrorist activities.

In the third text, a pair of authors Ondřej Čabelka and Stanislav Štěpánek examine the civil conflict in Mali. Their view focuses on the anti-insurgency and anti-terrorist operations of France, summarised here under the operation of Task Force Takuba.

The last – fourth - article discusses the still topical area of Afghanistan. Here, Kateřina Šupová and Josef Kraus focus on the evaluation of the UNAMA special political mission. The criteria used and findings may also help us identify the problems and shortcomings that contributed to the failure of the allied efforts.

The issue also includes two reviews of expert publications. Michael Cohen presents the title Noise: A Flaw in Human Judgment by Daniel Kahneman, Olivier Sibony, and Cass Sunstein, certainly interesting not only for experts from the defence department.

In another review, Jiří Šedivý looks at the publication entitled Vybrané kapitoly o bezpečnosti (Selected Chapters on Security). The book was prepared by a team of authors led by Vladimír Karaffa, Martin Hrinko and Jaromír Zůna. This publication will certainly attract all readers who want to learn more about ensuring the security of the Czech Republic.

Dear readers, on behalf of the entire editorial team, thank you for your constant favour. We wish you a peaceful Christmas and holiday season and for 2022, above all, good health.

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