Smart states, through alliances, synergistically enhance the capacity, readiness, responsiveness, resilience, sustainability and interoperability of their instruments of national power. NATO is ...constantly continually responding in a multidimensional way to changing security threats and operational circumstances, including by updating and upgrading concepts, plans and measures. The Alliance is also an opportunity for self-reflection; not to judge in retrospect, but to prevent mistakes in the future. We need to discuss honestly why we might be elsewhere, as had been desired and planned, but at the same time, despite our small size, we could be more courageous in pursuing different and original solutions.
The aim of this article is to highlight the issue of the inclusiveness of lesbian and gay man members in the Slovenian Armed Forces. Based on focused structured interviews, we studied both the social ...(perception of lesbians) and institutional aspect (perception of the Slovenian Armed Forces). The findings suggest that more attention should be paid to this issue and it should be explored from other methodological perspectives, which would help the Slovenian Armed Forces to follow the patterns of change in Slovenian society in order to maintain its legitimacy and an inclusive working environment also for social groups with different sexual orientation. The research concerns a sensitive and still mostly hidden topic of the Slovenian Armed Forces, which is not much talked about. The article brings the first military sociological research on the inclusion of lesbian and gay man members in the Slovenian Armed Forces.
Approximately 470,000 refugees and migrants passed through Slovenian territory between September 2015 and March 2016, creating a crisis that required a great deal of organisational and field work on ...the part of many governmental and non-governmental institutions. In the social sciences, a discourse on "security versus humanitarian approach" on the refugees and migrant issue appeared; however, the article goes over such a discourse and deals with roles and problems of different institutions - mostly the military - that responded to the crisis. Namely, coping with the crisis was characterised by significant institutional adjustments, difficult co-ordination, and intense public debate. The Slovenian Armed Forces were included in this process as support for Civil Protection and Police. The military's role followed the military missions defined by the Defence Act; however, the government also proposed some changes to the act that were met with some doubts on the part of the public and different institutions.
The importance of getting the job done is taking over our personal lives and causing a potential work–family conflict. There are some institutions that have traditionally placed high demands on their ...members and have been termed ‘greedy institutions’. This article analyses the relationship between two greedy institutions – the family and the military – considering the demands they both place on their members. The article strives to establish which one of them is greedier and consequently responsible for a potential work–family conflict. The in-depth analysis is based on the findings of 10 years’ research among service members of the Slovenian Armed Forces and a sample of their families. The results indicate that: (1) both the family and the military might be greedy institutions, although especially during deployment the greediness of the military outweighs that of the family; (2) the contemporary military organization does not only require service members’ loyalty, but the whole family’s support; (3) Slovenian military families remain highly supportive, regardless of military demands; (4) there are no significant differences in balancing work/family between genders (p = .119), with women reporting less work–family conflict than men (p = .041) and women feeling more support for their deployment from their family and friends than men.
Today, almost as a rule, the military boasts a high level of public trust throughout the world. The Slovenian Armed Forces are among the most trusted institutions in the country. A comparative ...analysis of the public trust in the military in other countries, however, shows that the level of trust in the Slovenian military is below the global average. In this article, the level of trust in the Slovenian Armed Forces is presented and compared with the public trust in the military in other countries. This article presents the concepts of trust of Almond and Verba, Inglehart, Banfield and other authors, and discusses the level of trust in the military in Slovenia through these concepts. The analysis shows that several factors diminish trust in the military in Slovenian society: from a lack of knowledge and little interest in the military, defense and security matters, to dissatisfaction with political processes.
There is a decade long discussion about the professional military education in Slovenia. The country has developed its own military force after the independence in 1991. Since the lack of the ...professional officers corps there was a decision adopted to have a convergent system of staffing the military with the officers. The future officers have to obtain high school or university degree at civilian education institutions,after that they get the military training and education provided by the Slovenian Armed Forces.
On the fifteenth anniversary of UN Security Council Resolution 1325 on Women and Peace and Security, a questionnaire was designed for the Slovenian Armed Forces (SAF) on the role and position of ...women in the armed forces. Two journals about women in the armed forces published in 1995 and 2002 served as the starting point of our research. The theoretical bases were tested on a sample of SAF members. The article presents the results of the questionnaire from 2015 when SAF members answered questions about the role and position of female SAF members at home and 190 abroad. A comparison with the results of certain previous surveys at the Ministry of Defence is also included.
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