International Scientific Journals
of Scientific Technical Union of Mechanical Engineering "Industry 4.0"

This article compares the measures of two states, Kazakhstan, and Uzbekistan, competing for the position of regional leader. Elimination of radicalization from the lowest levels of the state is a natural concern of authoritarian governments. Mindful of the threat that religious extremism poses to the stability of authoritarian regimes, they condemn terrorism in all its forms and support the international community’s efforts to fight (Islamist) terrorism together. To ensure stability and national security, the governments of both countries have adopted comprehensive national strategies and action plans to counter radicalization and terrorism. Their common feature is the focus on preventive measures in local communities. However, while Kazakhstan concentrates on addressing the root causes of extremism, a strong emphasis on repressive measures can be identified within the Uzbek strategies. The article examines the limits of cooperation between the leading Central Asian countries as declared in the current legislative acts, highlights how the positions of Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan differ and diverge, and the potential to mitigate the risks associated with extremism in Central Asia by strengthening regional cooperation and understanding.

NATO is facing an array of challenges in the Balkans – both ‘old’ and conventional, and ‘new’ and asymmetric. This paper seeks to offer an overview and provide an analysis of the risks emanating from Russia’s strategic interests in the peninsula and possible complications as an example of ‘traditional’ threat. Additionally, the author will strive to a nalyze them in the context of ‘modern’ security challenges in the region, such as the risks stemming from the migration from the Middle East and North Africa, and the challenges, particularly in the Western Balkans, of radicalization and returning foreign fighters. NATO’s role in the region is particularly important as no single country in the region has the capabilities to address such transnational threats and challenges unilatera lly. The hypothesis is that the Alliance needs to significantly enhance its soft power capabilities, intensify cooperation between stakeholders in the region, and adapt to more contemporary and asymmetric threats.

This article discusses the issues related to the planning of activities for ensuring the physical security of critical infrastructure sites. The critical infrastructure is considered as an important element of the national security of the country, and the cri ticality is determined by the interdependence between the individual elements and the dependence of the society on its normal functioning.

This article discusses the value of mission displacement of armed, violent, and resistance groups to turn them to moderate groups who do not count on violence, the definition of mission displacement is the shift of the groups’ means to replace their ends that they pursue, such change ultimately leads to a profound change in their violent nature by discrediting their credibility. The main argument is that groups lose their appeal whenever they are subjected to mission displacement; quite a few turns to become criminal groups rather than terroristic or resistance groups. This article takes the group of Abu Nidal as a case study of how a group was affected by state sponsorship and changed its focus upon the means more than the ends. This displacement degrades the pool of social support to their cause and changes their ‘noble cause’ to an illegitimate cause.

The activities of terrorist organizations in the international arena provide benefits of access to global financial flows, various criminal markets, offshore financial centers and banks that guarantee fast large cashless transactions, with guarantees of business and banking secrets. This often requires connecting with criminal organizations that specialize in financial and cybercrime, which is why terrorists are often associated with organized crime. The link between organized crime and terrorism is usually functional, when organized crime is put into function (financing and arming) of terrorism. At the same time, the connection can be instrumental, when terrorist groups are involved in organized crime, and vice versa – when criminal groups undertake terrorist activities. Precisely, the focus of the work will be on determining these correlations and their security implications, which we must take into account when creating effective strategies for combating organized crime and terrorism.

Medical facilities are distinctive types of premises accessible by a wide range of visitors seven days a week. They are places characterized by a high concentration of civilians and low-level security against the occurrence of various types of emergencies. Undoubtedly, terrorism is one of them. From a security point of view, hospitals are soft terrorist targets. Given the topicality of terrorism, we must address the question whether sufficient security is ensured for medical facilities. The aim of this paper is to point out the key role of security management in the overall management of hospitals. It will also outline some shortcomings in technical and operational security applications for their premises. The paper further discusses the effectiveness of crisis plans and emergency management exercises, as those are the primary conditions of successful emergency management.

This report studies the threat for the European security posed by terrorist attacks with chemical, biological, nuclear or radiological (CBRN) materials. Latest tendencies of the problem of the last few years are being studied, and some cases broadly discussed in the media worldwide are being analyzed. Terrorists’ methodologies are being assessed, and their possibilities to obtain weapons of mass destruction. The possibility for developing an improvised explosive device with chemical substances aiming to cause damage to critical infrastructure targets which would pose a threat to the national security of the country is also considered.

Markovian models are often used in modelling a time development of random phenomena. When modelling real world scenarios it is reasonable to assume that the respective phenomena may not be time homogeneous. Based on the sociological and security research, it can be assumed that there is a link between a destabilisation of a society of a given geographical region and the acts of terrorism. This link is utilised in construction of a model for description of the intensity of a terrorist threat based on given determinants/indicators of societal stability. The model is based on the theory of discrete non-homogeneous Markov chains. The theory of generalised linear models (GLMs) is used in the estimation of the probabilities of the categorised level of the terrorist threat. In the contribution the use of different estimates of the categorised level of terrorist threat probabilities is studied. The estimates are determined by GLMs with different input parameters. The influence of the resulting estimate on the transition matrix of the non-homogeneous Markov chain is assessed. Additionally, a real world example utilising the data from Global Terrorism Database of University of Maryland and Organisation for Economical Cooperation and Development is presented.

Ethnic, religious, cultural and ideological and political diversity of societies in the Balkan Peninsula have repeatedly led to armed conflicts and various forms of political violence in the past. Similar turmoils are evident so far, and it is highly unlikely that they would be absent in the future. For that reason, the geospatial of the Balkans is symbolically called the “powder keg”. An additional security challenge is certainly the global forced migration that this georegia is faced with after 2015, which has also increased the fears of governments and citizens against refugee terrorism. In this regard, the aim of this paper is to point out that the fear of “Islamist terrorism” of migrants is unjustified, while at the same time extremist groups and radicalized individuals who have been present for years in the Balkans and who were resorting, who resort now and will probably resort to some forms of political violence in the future, are marginalized.

The present report considers the EU Action Plan to enhance preparedness against chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear security (CBRN) risk, adopted in 2009 by the EU Council. The Action Plan‟s overall goal is to reduce the threat of, and damage from, CBRN incidents of accidental or intentional origin, including terrorist acts. The Plan provides possibilities for the EU member states to implement the listed standards by including them into the national legislation. The National Program developed subsequently in Bulgaria for the implementation of the EU CBRN Action Plan is also analyzed. The strengths and weaknesses of the document are revised as well as the progress of its implementation.

Much has been said and wrote during the past year on how best the international community must oppose the expansion of geography of international terrorism.The growth of terrorism to such an unprecedented scale requires the intergration of the forces of the whole civilized world to fight it. For the successful implementation of this struggle is necessary to use all possible means: political, economic, legal and military. This imposes the implementation of a specialized training program of Bulgarian Special Operations Forces.

The author examines topical issues of security, constituting the bulk of the threats, challenges and obstacles to national and civil security today.