The term urbicide is generally understood as “violence against the city” or “destruction of the urban,” where urbs means “city” and cide refers to the “killing.” This term applies to a deliberate attempt to destroy a city or urban settlement. However, urbicide represents neither a supplement to mass extermination nor collateral to armed intervention, as its purpose is to ruin the city itself. The term was coined in 1963 by Michael Moorcock and has been widely employed to describe urban restructuring, mostly in Western countries. However, scholars began using this term in the context of destruction beginning with the Balkan Wars in the 1990s, especially after the “Siege of Sarajevo.” Besides the Balkan Wars, different types of urbicide have happened in the Middle East and Eastern Europe, including in post-Soviet countries. The present renewed interest in the topic of urbicide is connected with the wars in Syria and Ukraine. This study focused on the first incident of urbicide in modern warfare, Warsaw during the Second World War, and two recent cases: Mariupol in Ukraine and Aghdam in Azerbaijan. The author, by comparing different cases, posits that a warring party that embarks on urbicide might pursue different goals—not only to destroy a conflicting party’s defense, but also to erase the city’s cultural attribution as well as to prevent the future rehabilitation and return of the pre-war population.
Hybrid warfare is currently among the most trending topics. Hybrid threats arise in digital, cybernetic, and virtual environments and materialise in the real world. Despite being a somewhat vague term, hybrid activities include cyberwarfare, information warfare, and the emerging and evolving concept of cognitive warfare which appears from their intersection. These buzzwords gained popular attention in the context of the Russo- -Ukrainian conflict and such terms are now in vogue. Even though these topics are in the spotlight, there is also widespread confusion about what exactly these usages mean and what the implications are in branding them as “warfare”. Indeed, all these concepts are fluid, nebulous, and lack an undisputed legal definition. This article aims to clarify their meaning and to shed light on the characteristics of such terms – differences, similarities and overlaps – in the context of hybrid warfare and show the faulty reasoning upon which misunderstandings are based. The paper concludes with a glimpse into the future, closing with a reflection on multi-domain operations facilitated by a fully integrated human- -computer interaction in the metaverse, where physical reality is merged and interacts with digital virtuality.
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It has been over eight years since the Russian Federation illegally conquered Crimea. It was probably the apogee of the biggest noise about the "Russian hybrid war". Some authors in the literature on the subject have completely questioned this concept, while others have perceived it as a new way of waging war. In recent years, hybrid war has become a new but controversial term in academic, political book positions to suggest a kind of combination of different military and non-military means and methods. The ongoing war conflict in Ukraine has shown the important role played by well-organized propaganda. It must not be forgotten that one of the most important goals of contemporary hybrid wars is to win a battle in the enemy's mind. In order to achieve this, it is necessary to have a free media market, in which the aggressor occupies a strong position or such a level of access to modern telecommunications technologies among the population of the attacked state, which will allow for widespread familiarization with propaganda and information materials posted on social networks, websites. The aim of the article is to present the issue of hybrid warfare in the modern world.
PL
Minęło ponad osiem lat, odkąd Federacja Rosyjska nielegalnie podbiła Krym. Było to prawdopodobnie apogeum największego szumu o „rosyjskiej wojnie hybrydowej”. Niektórzy autorzy w literaturze przedmiotu całkowicie zakwestionowali tę koncepcję, inni postrzegali ją jako nowy sposób prowadzenia wojny. W ostatnich latach wojna hybrydowa stała się nowym, ale kontrowersyjnym terminem w akademickich, politycznych pozycjach książkowych, sugerującym rodzaj połączenia różnych środków i metod wojskowych i pozamilitarnych. Trwający konflikt wojenny w Ukrainie pokazał, jak ważną rolę odgrywa dobrze zorganizowana propaganda. Nie można zapominać, że jednym z najważniejszych celów współczesnych wojen hybrydowych jest wygranie bitwy w umyśle wroga. Chcąc to osiągnąć, niezbędny jest wolny rynek mediów, na którym agresor zajmuje silną pozycję lub taki poziom dostępu do nowoczesnych technologii telekomunikacyjnych wśród ludności atakowanego państwa, co pozwoli na szerokie zapoznanie się z propagandą oraz materiały informacyjne zamieszczane na portalach społecznościowych, stronach internetowych. Celem artykułu jest przedstawienie problematyki wojny hybrydowej we współczesnym świecie. Problem badawczy określono w formie pytania – jakie nowe elementy prowadzenia wojen są specyfiką prowadzenia współczesnych wojen hybrydowych? W celu odpowiedzi na to pytanie wykorzystano przede wszystkim krytyczną analizę literatury przedmiotu.
W tekście autorzy odnieśli się do wprowadzenia metodologicznego problematyki zapewnienia prawnoorganizacyjnych uwarunkowań funkcjonowania państwa w warunkach zewnętrznego zagrożenia i w czasie wojny. Wyjaśniono podstawowe pojęcia dotyczące tej problematyki, jak również określono cele badań we wskazanym zakresie oraz możliwy do przyjęcia główny problem badawczy i szczegółowe problemy badawcze. W dalszej części, na podstawie analizy regulacji prawnych, literatury przedmiotu autorzy przedstawili podstawowe zagadnienia związane z podniesionym tematem, w tym kwestie dotyczące gotowości obronnej państwa, funkcjonowania organów administracji publicznej w tym wojskowej oraz przywrócenia stanu normalnego funkcjonowania państwa po wojnie.
EN
In the text, the authors refer to the introduction of the methodological issues of ensuring legal and organizational conditions for the functioning of the state in conditions of external threats and in times of war. The basic concepts related to this issue were explained, as well as the objectives of the research in the indicated scope as well as the acceptable main research problem and detailed research problems were defined. Further on, on the basis of the analysis of legal regulations and literature on the subject, the authors presented the basic issues related to the discussed topic, including issues related to the state's defense readiness, the functioning of public administration bodies, including the military, and restoration of the state to normal functioning after the war.
Autorka, w tym artykule, chce wskazać na istotne aspekty dotyczące hybrydyzacji współczesnych wojen i walki asymetrycznej. Te definicje wydają się być nowe, jednak znajdują one swoje miejsce w historii. Konsekwencje jakie niosą za sobą współczesne wojny sprawiają, że musimy zacząć myśleć o znaczeniu, narzędziach i metodach zapewniania bezpieczeństwa. Świat wokół nas zmienia się bardzo szybko co stawia nas przed wieloma problemami. Również rozwój technologiczny stwarza wyzwania, z którymi nie musieliśmy nigdy wcześniej się mierzyć.
EN
In this paper the author wan ts to show the core aspects of hybridism of modern wars and of asymmetry in warfare. Those definitions sound as they are new but they already have had their place in history. The results of contemporary wars make us think of the means, instruments and methods of providing security. The world around us changes very quickly so it is necessary to face up to many problems. Also the technology development creates challenges which we haven’t had before.
Artykuł poświęcony jest przedstawianiu działań bojowych na mapach. Omówiono problemy doboru metod prezentacji kartograficznej i możliwości wynikające z zastosowania technologii GIS-owych, usług sieciowych, rozszerzonej rzeczywistości do przedstawiania dynamiki działań wojennych oraz pokazano różnorodne przykłady prezentacji tych działań.
EN
Maps, depicting the warfare, are elaborated according to the rules developed over the years. Although, they are not free of errors. The authors draw our attention to the diversity of methods related to the cartographic presentations, which are shown on the historical maps. This is quite understandable, because every such a map introduces an individual point of view on the historical facts. It is noted, that the most commonly used methods are the qualitative ones, among which, for instance, first of all, the method of signature is frequently used. In the case of historical maps displaying an event in the specific sequence of times, a loss of cartographic information always occur. This is connected both with the complexity of historical facts and with the difficulty in reading a map, which should present the dynamics of this phenomenon in a complete way. The dynamic variables, such as the time of exposure, duration, frequency, order, degree of change and synchronisation, should be taken into account on the maps of warfare. The use of information technology makes it possible to develop not only the simple maps presenting the course of warfare in the statistic and schematic ways, but also the maps, which are rich in various types of multimedia information. Multimedia cartographic presentations can be enriched with the photos and panoramas showing the direct effects of warfare and the pseudo three-dimensional visualization showing the battle from a selected direction. The proprietary software let to combine the sequence of photos into a presentation, allowing to take a virtual tour of the areas directly affected by the hostilities. Network services, such as WMS, WFS, WCS, provide the integrated data from the different sources for us. So, we can connect the archival maps with the contemporary satellite images, defining, thus, the location of a specific place in the terrain. The authors do not cover the issue of complexity connected with the elaboration of maps presenting the combat operations. The most important problems, which have not been discussed in this article, are the following ones: lack of base maps from the period to which the presented issues related, deliberate distortion of map contents, historical and cartographic imprecisions presented on the maps, appropriate selection of the methods of cartographic presentation related to the phenomena, which are presented on the maps.
Novadays the success of the military operations largely on the domination in the airspace. Although the traditional air threats, fixed wing and rotary wing aircraft, are still useful and formidable, the 21st century proliferation trend includes unmanned threats such as: tactical ballistic missles, cruise missles, unmanned aerial vehicles or rocket artillery and mortars munitions. Technological transformation from manned to the unmanned aircraft and their armaments makes more and more often to be expected with new, previously rarely evaluated air threats. This situation prompted the author of the article to review modern military air constructions and the concept of their use in both warfare and asymmetrical conflicts. This writing presents also methods of enemy air threat evaluation which are used in the decision-making process, focusing on the three essential: normative, capacitive, and objective one.
Różnorodność i specyfika zadań realizowanych przez funkcjonariuszy formacji policyjnych przeznaczonych do bezpośredniej ochrony osób zawartych w zakresie obowiązków, wymaga najwyższego poziomu wiedzy i umiejętności zawodowych oraz wysokiego poziomu cech psychomotorycznych. Osiągnięcie tych umiejętności wymaga co najmniej dwóch lat intensywnego szkolenia o różnym zróżnicowaniu, a także odpowiedniego nakładu środków finansowych. W pełni wyszkoleni funkcjonariusze stanowią zaplecze kadrowe dla istniejących grup ochronnych najważniejszych osób w państwie oraz wizytujących nasz kraj przedstawicieli innych krajów. Stanowią wizytówkę formacji zarówno w kraju, jak i na arenie międzynarodowej. Są wzorem dla młodej kadry formacji i dlatego powinni charakteryzować się odpowiednim wyszkoleniem i sprawnością, wiedzą, kulturą osobistą, a także umiejętnością odpowiedniego zachowania się w różnych sytuacjach w czasie realizacji zadań ochronnych.
EN
The preparation of the police formations officers for the direct protection of individuals requires specialist trainings. These trainings cover diverse areas such as tactical, pyrotechnical , physical, defense and specialist training. The trainings are conducted in various forms and include the following: theoretical and practical classes, camps, tests, competitions. The scope and the character of the trainings are adjusted to the present-day battle field and as well as to the changes occurring in the environment-specific tasks performed by the officers of particular police formations.
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The article contains the author’s considerations referring to conducting defensive operations on the tactical level The issues under discussion concerning contemporary defence show that in spite of the change of character o f contemporary combat operations and the development of fighting assets, the right choice of operation terrain, manoeuvre and respecting the principles o f the art of war remain the key determinant to achieve success in defence. Furthermore, it is worth noticing that the differences between defensive and offensive operations tend to disappear. Due to the new fighting assets, the defender may decide on the place and time of its breaking out, in a way pre-emptive to the striker’s actions. In the author’s opinion, contemporary defence may be effective thanks to its resistance to the opponents’ activities in the whole area of the defender’s responsibility. It gains the key importance to ensure freedom of operation in that area which will be achieved by combining the activity, stability, cohesion, life-span, information acquisition and other factors joined by the commander’s single common key thought in his area of defence. The article also stresses the necessity to draw conclusions resulting from contemporary armed conflicts necessary to forecast hypothetical scenarios of the defensive operation character in the future. The Russian - Georgian conflict is an excellent example, therefore the author refers to some aspects of that armed confrontation.
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The literature published so far related to military security is extensive, however, there are not many attempts to define this category. On the basis of different researchers’ considerations one may find military security as a relation, status, complex practice, process and as a vast phenomenon it makes a specific, clearly defined area of scientific research. Some important for military security categories were reviewed in the article. The definition of weapon was proposed and it was stated that, because of its extraordinary evolution and as a result of the emergence of untypical combat participants, defining armed fighting encounters serious difficulties. Furthermore, in parallel with the expanding range of weapons, scope of armed violence is widening. It was also found that the main spheres of military security include military threats and the State’s own activity.
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In the theory of the problem, space is perceived as a set of elements and relations occurring between them, and the Cartesian theory it is defined through three dimensions: length, height and width of an item. Adding an adjective, we define more precisely the kinds of space and each of them has its characteristic referents. In the theory and practice of the art of war, in order to describe the place where an armed fighting is conducted we still use the notion of battlefield but it includes the referents of a superficial activity and is rather a historical category than the one which defines modern warfare. Therefore, it is justified to use the notion of warfare space because it contains more referents than “battlefield” and reflects the contemporary character of combat in the warfare space are included all referents designating current particular kinds of space in adjective aspect. Hence, warfare space becomes a physical and civilisational environment of human activity together with its elements.
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Istnienie związków między szachami a zarządzaniem wiedzą, szachami a strategią wojskową, szachami a rozwijaniem umiejętności, szachami a rozwijaniem zdolności do podejmowania decyzji, szachami a rozwojem osobowości jest znane od dawna. Istota niniejszej publikacji oraz zawarte w niej sugestie ukierunkowane są na ścisły związek tej gry z rozwojem techniki informacyjnej ostatnich dekad. W 2004 roku naukowcy Szwecji oraz Australii, przy zastosowaniu programów komputerowych i metod matematycznych, uzyskali znaczące wyniki w badaniach nad związkiem szachów z działaniami wojennymi. W 2006 roku na Węgrzech podjęto szerokie studia, których wyniki są przedstawiane w publikacjach, a także w trakcie konferencji naukowych. Od września 2007 roku będzie prowadzona dysertacja doktorska w ramach studiów doktoranckich węgierskiego Uniwersytetu Obrony Narodowej im. Miklósa Zrinyi. Będzie nosiła tytuł: Studiowanie szachów oraz ich związków z technikami informacyjnymi w celu określenia podobieństw oraz możliwości zastosowania tej gry w obszarze operacji wojskowych, rozwoju uzbrojenia, podejmowania decyzji, szkolenia wojskowego i edukacji. Ze względu na silne związki szachów z technikami informacyjnymi znacząco wzrosła efektywność możliwości nauki gry w szachy, co skutkuje w rezultacie zwiększeniem możliwości rozwijania zdolności podejmowania decyzji. Niniejsza publikacja, dzięki przedstawieniu najnowszych wyników badań naukowych, wskazuje na sposoby dalszego rozwijania poprzez szachy cech i zdolności przydatnych w sferze wojskowości.
EN
The relationship between chess and knowledge management, chess and military strategy, chess and skills development, chess and decision-making ability development, chess and personality development is far from being new. The timeliness of our publication and suggestions is supported by the development of information technology in the recent decades. In 2004 Swedish and Australian scientists achieved substantial results in the research of the relationship between chess and warfare by using computer technology and mathematical methods. In 2006 in Hungary new research began which is marked by several publications and conference presentations. From September 2007 a new PhD topic will be launched by the PhD School of Military Technology at Zrinyi Miklós National Defence University which title is: “Studying chess and its informational technology background to find analogies and application possibilities regarding battlefield operations, armaments development, decision making, military training and education”. Due to the excellent information technological background of chess, the effectiveness of chess education has substantially increased, as a result of which, up-to-date methods of skills, personality and decision-making ability development through chess are relatively easy to work out and accomplish. This publication, by presenting some fresh results, points at the possibility of chess related research and exploiting the educational, skills, personality and decision-making ability development in military matters thorough chess.
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Taking into considerations the attributes of the air force, recognised as one of the most valuable, modern, expensive and at the same time "complicated to use" services, it has to be assumed that in the next few years it will be the service that can be effectively used in deterrence, stabilisation, help providing and rescue operations, as well as to defeat a potential enemy. It will be possible in any of probable war or other than war conflicts. The analysis of the armed fighting principles, rules of armed forces engagement, air force including, the conditions, forms and characters of probable armed conflicts, forecast threats and challenges in the following years, and technological development of air force equipment has been made. It shows that in order to achieve the tasks of joint operations conducted in wartime and other than war, a great importance will be attached to complying with such a set of rules for air force engagement that would include: reliability, flexibility, concentration, synergy and the unity of commanding. These rules should have a relatively permanent form, but their contents should undergo systematic transformations along with the qualitative development of the air force equipment and the changes in forecast challenges’ forms and character It might be assumed that in spite of the fact that these rules will not be additional assets and forces used to defeat the enemy, they will play an essential role to resolve disputable security problems in the next few - year perspective. The fixed rules of air force engagement, completed with the results analysis of its activities in conflicts conducted at the turn of the century, forecast character of threats and armed conflicts of the last years were the bases to generate some kind of regularities of engaging them in the conflicts.
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Armed fighting as a social phenomenon depends on some factors affecting this process participants. Many of them can be mentioned, however, the most important and basic of tactical operations determinants are forces, area and information. Land forces tactical unit waging a battle will be affected by factors deciding of its course. The commander's tactical talent and knowledge to select an appropriate relation between the forces, area and time and also to synchronise these mentioned above factors with designated operational task may influence the success of carried out operations. The proper use of the forces and means that the tactical unit's commander has in relation to both the enemy's actions and battlefield environment in an appropriate time conditions achieving the task.
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The article presents a new approach towards armed fighting system modelling based on general theory of cybernetic circuits. The main idea of this approach is to picture a bipolar subsystem of armed fighting using the relatively remote system, the basic role in which is played by input/output signals and negative feedback loop. The armed fighting system has been presented using two subsystems A and B (parties) being in conflict. Basic on a classical scheme of the "black cybernetic box", the evolutionary developed line of armed fighting systems has been considered. The presentation of these systems begins with the elementary model of class X, and finishes with a complex system of XYZUW class taking into consideration destructive operational streams Y and Z and supporting streams of operational and logistic support U and W. The considerations are theoretical and concern basic problems of armed fighting modelling in which a general apparatus of mathematical analysis and control theory has been used. Part 1 of the article is an introduction to a two-part series on recurrent modelling of armed fighting symmetrical systems with operational and logistic support.
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The process of finishing marching is connected with describing the state when the troops reached its destination. Thus it is essential to define what kind of value the troops should represent after finishing the march. The general aim of marching is to reach a certain destination place in secret maintaining combat readiness in defined time. If such a state existed in the defined place that means that the destination of the march was reached. Marching troops will meet the conditions of carrying out the march if they reach the assigned (area) line in defined time, in anticipated structural state, ready to carry out subsequent tasks. After fulfilling the conditions to reach the destination of the march, it is essential to perceive relations between its general and particular aim.
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This article is a continuation of the contents published in “Zeszyty Naukowe AON” no 2 where the author presented his views on information in processes taking place in the armed fighting area. In this article the author considers military art development tendencies through the information aspect. He defines and accounts for general conditions of current and future operations both in information technologies and in information support of future operations. There have been stressed threats, the effect of particular countries (or coalitions) information advantage, resulting from the need to adjust to it by countries (or coalitions) that do not have technological or financial possibilities to reach it.
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The article deals with the model of communication planning process basing on the process of command. A general plan of the staff work in the process of command is presented in the first part of the article, in the second one- basic activities in the process of command, communication planning process in particular. The actions planning process, the information - decision-making communication process including, is called a communication commanding process and is introduced in the article on the example of communication and computer information team in a mechanised brigade. It is, however, so general that can be applied on other command levels. The factors are shown on each stage of the planning process that should be included into communication and computer information team’s works in order to carry out a full communication evaluation of their task and work out necessary documents. The basic documents used to write the article, regarding command, are mostly the materials prepared by the research workers and teachers of the Command and Communication Faculty. According to the authors this study will enable getting closer to the problems of communication command process on a tactical level and can be used by, e.g., the communication and computer information team during exercises carried out in AON.
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The article attempts to explain the structure and mechanism of armed fighting on the military art, psychology and praxiology grounds. In his semantic - logical considerations, the author looks for the answer to the question: what armed is fighting and how it can be perceived. He presents this a cognition subject matter in ontology, theory-cognition and methodology reflection. He also shows the sources of contemporary armed fighting knowledge gaining and acquiring, the contents included in the article are addressed mainly to doctoral studies students in the Academy of National Defence.
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