Safety & Defense
Dear Readers,
I kindly invite you to read the articles in this year's third issue of “Safety & Defense." I assure you that the papers published in this newest volume are relevant and provide an interesting point of view. In accordance with the objectives adopted by the journal’s team, the articles deal with a multiplicity of military and non-military aspects of safety and security. There are nine articles in the issue.
The first paper consists in theoretical considerations about the approach to combat and analysis of the notion of victory in the aspect of agonistics, praxeology, and the art of war. In an interesting way, the authors confront praxeological and sociological contexts with the concepts characteristic for the art of war. They attempt to harmonize often diverse grasps of the phenomena of combat and victory.
The analysis presented in the next article focuses around the military-specific aspect of the role of artillery in the joint fire support – JFS. The discussion is theoretical and concentrates on issues related to the function, location, and role of artillery as a part of JFS. Moreover, the author emphasizes the significance of artillery as fire support that allows to gain the army the operation freedom and avoid friendly fire. In order to achieve these results, the process of rational planning is necessary to facilitate all available means and proper coordination of actions effectively.
The next article deals with the important and very current issue of shaping economic and energy security by the policy. The analysis focuses on the impact of oil prices on Russia and Saudi Arabia's policies in the first quarter of 2020. The presented results are of qualitative and quantitative nature and are obtained by the use of categorized boxplots. The results support the thesis that low prices per barrel in a long time horizon may contribute to a global financial crisis. In order to avoid such crises, it will probably be necessary to sign international agreements. This, on the other hand, will be difficult due to disparate interests of the global market leaders, i.a., the United States, China, and Russia.
Quite different problems are addressed in the following paper, which discusses social evaluations regarding building a missile defense complex in Redzikowo, Poland, by the United States. The author shows how the trends of public support in Poland have been changing. In the research, quantitative and qualitative analyses were used, and the primary research method was an analysis of opinion surveys in Poland in 2004-2019.
The subject of the following paper is equally interesting. The article focuses on examining and finding discernable patterns, including the reasons for the occurrence of dangerous situations in air transport. The research results cover a long time span, namely the period between 1919 and 2018. Based on the obtained results, the authors identified five periods when the highest number of dangerous situations occurred. Moreover, they carried out a detailed analysis of the consequences and recurrence of aviation incidents in the defined time periods and identified some regularities regarding the causes of their occurrence.
The next article analyzes various non-state actors, which more and more often play a leading role in contemporary armed conflicts. Usually, they consist of various warlords, paramilitary organizations, sect militias. One such group, thoroughly discussed in the paper, is Dwekh Nawsha that operated in northern Iraq during the invasion of Daesh or the so-called Islamic State. The considerations included in the article are qualitative. The author builds his argument with the use of a broad spectrum of research methods and techniques.
The evaluation of the defense efforts undertaken by Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania after 2014 is the subject of the following article. The analysis focuses on national actions in regard to military defense and the citizens’ social resilience of these countries. The researchers thoroughly examined the Baltic states' government documents and their strategies and concepts of security and defense and defense plans and budgets. Considering the obtained results, the authors concluded that despite national determinants and changes in the international environment, the Baltic states consequently implement the basic elements of a complex defense. However, reaching a satisfying level of security will require a significant organizational and financial effort.
The following paper focuses on identifying the level of innovativeness and priorities of students attending the General Tadeusz Kościuszko Military University in Wrocław, Poland. The research is of qualitative and quantitative nature. The primary method used was surveying. Based on the obtained results, the authors draw interesting conclusions regarding the approach to teamwork, creativity in work, and soft skills.
The final analysis presented in this issue of "Safety and Defense" is dedicated to cyber security. The paper's author focuses on legal aspects of conducting cyber operations using the events taking place in Estonia in 2007 as a case study. The article compares the activities carried out in Estonia in that year with the currently existing methods and tools used in cyberwar.
Our goal is to constantly work on improving the quality of our journal. That is why I would like to ask all our readers, authors, reviewers, and supporters to provide their opinions, including comments and personal suggestions regarding the publishing process and the new webpage of the journal. Thank you in advance for all your comments and suggestions.
May the upcoming year be filled with success and full of new achievements.
Adam Radomyski
Editor in Chief