Artykuł ma na celu ukazanie przyczyn konfliktu na Ukrainie w odniesieniu do struktur zachodnich – Unii Europejskiej oraz NATO i ich reakcji na wydarzenia, jakie miały i mają miejsce w tym kraju, a także oczekiwań społeczności międzynarodowej i samej Ukrainy względem tych graczy. Artykuł uwypukla także specyficzne cechy konfliktu, które wskazują na jego hybrydowy charakter, wyjaśniając jednocześnie przyczyny i możliwe skutki.

The article deals with the consequences of a political agreement between King Ferdinand I and a part of the Bohemian opposition nobility, concluded in 1547 in order to restore stability following the Schmalkaldic War (1546–1547). The change in the tax system put Bohemian royal cities and owners of large estates at a considerable disadvantage while profits from manor farming and financial services remained virtually untaxed. This tax structure, applied for several decades, resulted in a rapid increase of debts and the ultimate collapse of the entire tax system in 1615. The resulting financial crisis was resolved by the Bohemian Landtag in 1615 by declaring bankruptcy of the treasury and taking over tax collection.

The turbulent changes in the Middle East which were seen at the very beginning as good news for Israel, at the end of the day became more ambiguous. The Arab Spring and then the war in Syria that had erupted along with massive social protests ended up with regime changes, but what was crucial, the primary success of the Arab awakening was captured by Islamist movements. The changes in the Middle East were even deeper due to at least two factors – Russia „coming into” and the United States „going out” of the region. These new regional circumstances combined with the geopolitical shift in the Middle East and a crumbling American supervision made Israel conclude that its security has become more complex and the U.S has no more been the only significant great power player in the region. Hence the difficult political and military situation around Israel has created a need to adapt to security challenges and simultaneously, to take political opportunities. The goal of this paper is to highlight basic ramifications for Israeli security and diplomacy of the American and Russian factors in the current Middle East politics. The key questions are: How to secure Israeli interests in these new circumstances? How to assess, on the one hand, the risk of the ongoing decline of American interests in the region and, on the other hand, the complexity of the Russian strategy in the Middle East? Finally, whether Israel might be able to gain recognition by the Arab world, not to mention to keep its strategic domination in the region which is already being challenged by the Islamic Republic of Iran and its nuclear ambitions.

Celem artykułu jest analiza pojęcia wojny i jej związków z ekonomią w filozofii społecznej J.G. Fichtego, w oparciu o „Zamknięte państwo handlowe”. W pierwszej części naszkicowany zostaje model autarkicznego i racjonalnego państwa, który posiada pewne podobieństwa z projektem politycznym Grakchusa Babeufa. W tym kontekście poglądy polityczne Fichtego zostają określone mianem „socjalizmu republikańskiego” w kontraście do liberalnej doktryny Immanuela Kanta. W drugiej części zbadane zostają ekonomiczne i geopolityczne przyczyny wojny. Filozof przede wszystkim krytykuje rodzący się globalny rynek kapitalistyczny. Podsumowując, dla Fichtego idea zamkniętego państwa ma gwarantować pokój tak wewnętrzny, jak zewnętrzny. Jednak filozof będący admiratorem rewolucji francuskiej, dopuszcza sytuacje, gdy wojny są etycznie usprawiedliwione.

Wojna jako ekstremalne zjawisko o naturze społecznej przez stulecia charakteryzowała się swoistą hermetycznością wobec niemilitarnych domen rzeczywistości. Zarówno w wymiarze etycznym, politycznym, prawnym, obyczajowości, a nawet języka, wojskowość i wojskowi tworzyli ekskluzywną (sub)kulturę. Wpisywały się te procesy w „triadę” Carla von Clauzewitza, który właśnie „armię” wskazywał jako wyodrębniony filar wojny. Pozostając elementem struktury państw, armie pogłębiały swoją specyfikę kulturową i pewną odrębność. Jak wskazuje część badaczy, niejednokrotnie to właściwa organizacja wojskowości w państwie i działania na rzecz wzmocnienia jego potencjału wojennego narzucały szereg rozwiązań ustrojowych, prawnych i finansowych, stając się agregatem ewolucji systemów politycznych. W pierwszej połowie XX wieku doszło do głębokich przewartościowań w dziedzinie relacji między sferą militarną i państwową, które po 1945 roku doprowadziły do przesunięcia „punktu ciężkości” wojny w stronę bieguna społecznego. Konsekwencją była dość szczególna „demokratyzacja” wojskowości i postępujące rozszczelnienie dotychczasowych granic. Towarzyszyły temu procesy zmiany w postrzeganiu i prowadzeniu wojny. Celem stawały się w coraz większym stopniu społeczeństwa, a wobec totalizacji wojny – tradycyjny podział na domeny cywilną i wojskową uległ ostatecznemu zatarciu. Współczesna wojna zatem obliczona jest przede wszystkim na niszczenie społeczeństw, ich fundamentów oraz podstaw trwania i rozwoju. Na znaczeniu zyskują niekinetyczne i hybrydowe metody działań koercyjnych i przyporządkowane im środki. Pogłębieniu tych tendencji sprzyja rozwój kolejnego „teatru działań wojennych” – domeny psychologiczno-informacyjnej.

The article discusses how local engagement can contribute to preventing or ceasing ongoing conflicts. By the comparative analysis of three case studies – Somaliland, the Idjwi island in eastern Congo and Colombia, the author examines what methods do the local inhabitants use in order to successfully maintain peace and build a coherent society. The research on a bottom-up approach may supplement the strategies implemented by the international organisations of peace-building or peace-keeping missions, which usually neglect the engagement of local society and thus do not ensure sustainable peace.

Drone War as the Permanent State of Emergency

In 2001 began the so-called war on terror which gave rise to numerous and so far unknown strategies and technologies. One of the most important of them are military drones. Initially used for reconnaissance and looking for targets, they quickly became deadly weapons that change the course of war. Death in military conflicts, once inflicted directly by humans, today is inflicted indirectly by advanced technologies. Automated, mathematical algorithms make decisions whether an individual should live or be eliminated in the name of public security. In this article I prove that inflicting death through military drones is not just another war tactic but a new paradigm which may lead to the transformation of legal and political regime of Western countries. I analyze this paradigm in the light of Carl Schmitt’s category of the “state of exception”. I characterize the new methods of controlling law and governing population by Giorgio Agamben’s concept of “inclusive exclusion”.

Moscow and Kyiv vision of the interpretation of disputes about the past of the continuity of the historical roots of mutual statehood

Russian Federation’s attack of February 24, 2022 on Ukraine was no coincidence but a strategy to regain the status of superpower. Referring to history was its significant part. Indeed, that is a shared history, at least in the origin, though differently interpreted by both states, independent from 31 years. Based on the promoted from 16th Century vision of Russia as the Byzantine Empire’ successor, Putin’s Russian Federation claims the right to build an empire that would include all lands of the Russian Empire. It does not recognise independent statehood and Ukrainian nationality. The war was started to achieve that goal.

Trying to explain the term and essence of hybrid wars

Russian-Ukrainian conflict has contributed to the spread in the media and politics the term hybrid war. The purpose of this article is to encourage researchers to reflect on the pertinence of the use of the term and on the need to clarify it. The most important question highlighted in the course of analysis, lean toward determining of characteristics that would allow state clearly what kind of conflicts, using what techniques and from which point, you may to be called hybrid war

A culturally diverse school in Poland. Experiences of Bydgoszcz teachers in the first period of the war in Ukraine

The article describes the experiences of Bydgoszcz teachers working in culturally diverse schools in the first period of the war in Ukraine (from February 24 to April 22, 2022). The basis of the article is the analysis of the statements provided by the participants of the conference “A Ukrainian student in the Polish education system. How to help teachers create a multicultural learning environment?” organized at the Kazimierz Wielki University, by its Department of Didactics and Studies on Culture of Education and the Kuyavian-Pomeranian Centre for Teacher Education in Bydgoszcz. The statements presented in the article concern the experience of eighty teachers from Bydgoszcz schools of various levels as well as academics, doctoral students and students working in educational institutions. The article is a contribution to the methodical trend of intercultural pedagogy. It contains practical tips on the work of teachers in culturally diverse classes, developed on the basis of current statements provided by people taking care of refugees from Ukraine.

Contemporary Russian propaganda and the war in Ukraine

The article is an attempt to analyze contemporary Russian propaganda through the prism of the war in Ukraine. The purpose of the research is to assess the effectiveness of contemporary Russian propaganda in this area. The research was based on a qualitative methodology with the use of a source analysis strategy. Research showed the contemporary Russian propaganda has a significant impact on the perception of the war in Ukraine among Russians – although its effectiveness is showing a decrease.

Tasks of intercultural education in the context of the war in Ukraine

The war in Ukraine initiated by the Russians makes one aware every day of the destruction of ideas and principles of peaceful problem solving developed over the years, and of the paradigm of cultural coexistence created in intercultural education. The aim of the article is to point out the need to undertake new tasks through intercultural education in the face of the ongoing war in Ukraine. Shaping a culture of peace, “making peace” has now become the leading task of intercultural education. The text points to the task of building on “good memory” as an opportunity and possibility of dealing with “bad memory”, the emancipation of national memories, the revitalization of heterology – the science of the Other, intercultural competences, the elimination of stereotypes and prejudices, one-sided negative and aggressive propaganda, etc. The article emphasizes the responsibility of intercultural education for creating the principles of democracy, revitalizing values symbolizing the common history with Ukraine, cooperation and collaboration in the process of functioning in European culture.

Cultural changes with war in the background – eliminating Russian culture from the space of Western culture as a form of solidarity with the nation and culture of Ukraine

The main axis of the article is the socio-cultural phenomena occurring since the outbreak of the Russian invasion in Ukraine in 2022, which has caused important changes not only in Europe, but also in other regions of the world. These changes have obvious political, economic, demographic, social and less obvious cultural dimensions. The latter take various forms, among which one is particularly controversial – it is the elimination of Russian culture from the cultural space of Western and other countries, among them Poland. This stems from solidarity with the Ukrainian people and an attempt to influence the attitudes of the Russian society, who, as research indicates, endorse the Russian invasion. The boycott mainly concerns artistic culture, symbolic in terms of the works of both living and deceased artists, contemporary and classical creations, both proand anti-war artists. Against this background, a public discussion unfolds on the legitimacy of all forms of boycott and the issue of collective responsibility. The theoretical context for the consideration of these phenomena is the concept of cancel culture. Empirical illustrations, on the other hand, are the studies on the discussed phenomena based on the opinion of students of social sciences.

In this article, I would like to show that the “Siege of Sarajevo” is one such fragment of the past that has grown into a national myth. It will not be an abuse to say that today this city, by the fact that it constantly bears the marks of war, has become a kind of sanctuary for the Bosnian ethnos.

The war in Ukraine in historical and political dimensions

When starting operations in Ukraine, the Russian Federation set itself specific strategic goals. To determine the degree to which these goals have been achieved, they should be correlated with the course of Russian activities to date. The first phase of the Russian military operation ended in failure, and the implementation of the set strategic goals should be considered very difficult or even impossible. The initial answer may be that the war was planned and started by the Kremlin and its security services, not professional military officials. This is where the Russians ignored certain basic principles of the art of war and the concept of new generation war itself. The Russians have not designated a commander-in-chief in the Ukrainian theater of war.

Nuclear powers are losing wars too! Clash in the cognitive domain – Russian nuclear blackmail vs. Ukraine’s chances of victory

The clash conducted in the cognitive domain is aimed at influencing the will, determination, coherence of decision-making centers and threat assessment, at the level of individuals, groups and entire societies. Freedom of speech and multicentricity, make democratic societies more vulnerable to influence in the cognitive domain. Strategic signaling of nuclear readiness plays a special role among the leverage tools used by the Russian Federation. The interests of Western states have been and continue to be violated by Russia’s aggression against Ukraine. At the same time, the potential of Western states exceeds Russian potential many times over in a number of areas. Russia can count on a favorable resolution of the conflict for itself due to a calculation that takes into account the effective disruption of Western unity and determination to support a belligerent Ukraine, an element of which is the aforementioned threat of Russia’s use of nuclear weapons.