The anthology is a result of the research activities carried out in the Ergomas’ Working Group Public Opinion, Mass Media and the Military. The content is divided into three parts: Part one comprises texts that explore the attitudes of the public and the mass media toward international peacekeeping, crisis management and humanitarian operations and missions, especially toward the military operation International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan (ISAF). Part two considers several salient issues regarding the question of ‘casualty tolerance’ in contemporary societies, the image and the missions of the armed forces, the public’s perceptions of the relationship between political and military systems, and an explanation for the apparent contradiction between a relatively high level of public confidence in the military on one hand and a relatively high level of indifference expressed by the same public on the other hand. In the third part, the authors examine the mass media coverage of wars and explore the role of the media in the political sphere, especially in the question of civilian democratic control of the armed forces. The achievement is extremely important due to the fact that integrates efforts of researchers from several European countries but also from Asia and North America.
C.01 Editorial board of a foreign/international collection of papers/book
COBISS.SI-ID: 30817629The article deals with the acute and important issue of contemporary crisis management as a response to the complex threats to contemporary security. In the light of crisis management the changed role and mission of the civil defense in Slovenia demands a normative, legal and practical adjustment of crisis management and leadership suitable for the contemporary treats.
F.02 Acquisition of new scientific knowledge
COBISS.SI-ID: 30894429Asymmetry and asymmetric warfare increasingly take part in contemporary military, defence and security analyses. The cases described have shown all fundamental theorems which develop an asymmetric paradigm. That is based on the combination of kinetic (hard military measures), intelligence (support and preventive measures), information and also social-economic-political measures aimed at establishing a long-term stability in the conflict region. The historical experience in the Slovenian or Yugoslav territory shows that such approach is neither new nor original; however, it does include new scientific technical and social-science findings as well as the state-of-art technologies. Nevertheless, no matter how powerful actors are in the military or technological area, they will continue to face huge problems if the asymmetric factor enjoys support of the civilian population and neighbouring countries or global actors, and if the intervention against such actors loses legitimacy in the eyes of the domestic public. On the other hand, asymmetric and especially counter-insurgency cooperation is, as proved also by the Slovenian experience, extremely aggravating for the society in a long-term period, since it leads to social instability and forms the basis for development of social groups also within the “reconciled” society after the end of the conflict. Seventy years later, the Slovenian experience can teach us that insurgency and counter-insurgency, which both involved large crowds of population and were led by important social forces from the background, have had long-term consequences which define numerous social relations even 60 years after the war.
C.02 Editorial board of a national monograph
COBISS.SI-ID: 255087104