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The Response of the Federal Republic of Germany to the Russian Hybrid Threat: Case Study "Fall Lisa"
Pokorný, Jiří ; Handl, Vladimír (advisor) ; Lizcová, Zuzana (referee)
This master's thesis deals with the response of the Federal Republic of Germany to the Russian hybrid threat, which is examined using a case study of the so-called "Lisa case" from January 2016. The thesis aims to place the "Lisa case" in the context of German-Russian relations and hybrid threats in the security reality of the 21st century. Germany and Russia have long had a special relationship, which, however, fell into crisis after the Russian annexation of the Crimean Peninsula. The main goal of Russia's efforts to influence social and political development in Europe has become Germany, which must deal with new methods and strategies of hybrid warfare. The advent of hybrid threats is a challenge not only for Germany but also for its allies. Russia's view of hybrid threats proves that the term has different meanings for different actors. One of the manifestations of the Russian hybrid threat is the case of a thirteen-year-old girl of German-Russian origin Lisa F. who was missing in Berlin for several hours and allegedly raped by migrants. Although the German police promptly refuted the case, the Russian media misused the event to fuel an atmosphere of fear and uncertainty, especially among a significant minority of Russian Germans. The incident spread to the intergovernmental level when Russian...
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NATO and European Security in the East: The Impact of the Ukraine-Russia Conflict on NATO Doctrine and Ukrainian Strategy
Tymchuk, Halyna ; Záhora, Jakub (advisor) ; Ditrych, Ondřej (referee)
This diploma thesis will basically work with the concept of security, namely, the European secu- rity in recent years. Although Ukraine is not a NATO member, and Russia is NATO's distant neighbour, in this thesis I will prove that we should connect the events on Ukrainian border with European security. From the very onset of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, NATO was firm in its support of Ukraine's sovereignty and territorial integrity within its internationally recognized borders. The Allies immediately condemned the illegal "legitimate annexation" of the Crimea to Russia in March 2014 and they have repeatedly stated that they would never recognize it as well. They also condemned deliberate destabilization in eastern Ukraine which was provoked by Russia with the use of its military intervention and militants' support. The crisis in Ukraine has proved to be a real turning point in Euro-Atlantic security since some senior Western politicians began to speak about changes in the guideline of European defense policy. Ukrainian crisis created new security situation in Europe and still requires attention, in- volvement and response from NATO. This crisis sharpened strategic misunderstanding between Russia and the West. It shows very clearly that Moscow and the West understand European security in...
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An Interplay of Narratives: How Do the Czech Journalists Perceive Securitized Disinformation?
Hroch, Jaroslav ; Bahenský, Vojtěch (advisor) ; Střítecký, Vít (referee)
The aim of this thesis is to contribute to theoretically sound concept of Peace Journalism, which combines theoretical foundations from two spheres: conflict and peace studies and media studies. Influence of journalists as intervening force and explaining factor with regard to (violent) conflict is neglected. However, Peace Journalism is not theoretically strong and builds upon dualistic definition vis-á-vis so-called War Journalism. The concept of Peace Journalism has to overcome this delamination in order to reflect theoretical underpinnings of conflict transformation theory and conflict analysis. Moreover, Peace Journalism has to differentiate media according to an involvement of given societies in a conflict. This offers an opportunity to specifically and accurately analyse news coverage of conflicts. Case studies analysing Czech coverage of Cyprus and Nagorno-Karabakh conflicts illustrates this approach. The coverage is essentially flat, distorts a reality of the conflict, pays attention to visual and physical aspects of the conflict and closes the conflicts in arbitrary time boundaries.
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Information War and IR
Nyč, Tomáš ; Ditrych, Ondřej (advisor) ; Záhora, Jakub (referee)
Diploma thesis is focused on the issue of the information warfare in context of debate about modern warfare. Firstly, thesis presented the debate of modern ways of warfare, which consists concepts such as hybrid warfare, non-linear warfare etc. Then presented three main concepts of information warfare in the context of this debate and within the three centres of contemporary power in the world (West, Russia and China). Western concept clearly separating war and peace, Russian complex concept of hybrid-information war and Chinese concept of three warafres. Subsequently, the thesis develops a thesis on the securitization of information warfare in the western environment (EU and NATO states). Securitization is understood as a rhetorical act that presents a phenomenon as a major security threat. In the context of the West, the information warfare has been to some extent securitized. This whole securitization is problematic if we look at the information warfare as a normal state of international relations, which are inherently conflicting and anarchic.
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Russian news websites in the Czech Republic and its reporting about the European Union
Podzimková, Pavlína ; Osvaldová, Barbora (advisor) ; Moravec, Václav (referee)
In recent years, many sources have referred to the Russian hybrid or information warfare against the West. Disinformation media is considered an important part of the Russian strategy. A large number of allegedly Russian disinformation websites have appeared in the Czech Republic after 2014, when tensions in Ukraine were escalated. In this bachelor thesis we will analyse three of them: Sputnik Czech Republic, Aeronet and AC24. This content analysis will focus especially on news about the European Union. The aim of this bachelor thesis is to confirm or disprove the hypothesis about the Russian propaganda effort to weaken the status of Western institutions. The thesis will also deal with methods of manipulation in the content of disinformation websites.
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Securitization of hybrid war in the Czech Republic
Hendrych, Daniel ; Kazharski, Aliaksei (advisor) ; Záhora, Jakub (referee)
The thesis is focused on currently widely discussed topic of the Russian hybrid warfare. It examines how the discourse surrounding this topic in the Czech Republic unfolded and how certain actors, primarily the think-tank European Values, have securitized the issue of the Russian hybrid warfare. The thesis is grounded in the securitization theory developed by the Copenhagen School. The international context is also discussed, since the discourses about the Russian hybrid warfare against the West are interconnected and the interest in this subject have risen after the annexation of Crimea and especially after the Russian interference into the U.S. presidential election in 2016. The case study of the documents related to the Russian hybrid warfare published by the think-tank European Values is central to this project. Institutional mistrust is a crucial underlying cause driving the success of disinformation campaigns and creates an opportunity for the hybrid efforts. However, this thesis attempts to explain, how securitization of the Russian hybrid warfare can be unhelpful or even detrimental to the goal of facilitating a greater trust in institutions.
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Russian 'hybrid warfare': 1979-2014
Feryna, Jan ; Bahenský, Vojtěch (advisor) ; Kofroň, Jan (referee)
This bachelor thesis deals with research question of whether so called Russian hybrid warfare is new or not. In the introduction chapter, a structure of this thesis is presented. After the introduction, Western and Russian views on hybrid warfare are discussed and used as a concept. The author assumes that hybrid warfare was used by Russia in Crimea and eastern Ukraine and therefore is this case considered as proven. Above mentioned Russian view on hybrid warfare is operationalized and then applied. There are two main cases which will be examined - Soviet invasion in Afghanistan in 1979 and Russian war with Georgia in 2008. Results chapter comprises of final table which sums up results of the research. In the conclusion chapter, there is a clear answer to the above-mentioned research question.
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Hybrid Warfare, Wars, and Threats: A Conceptual Analysis
Bahenský, Vojtěch ; Kofroň, Jan (advisor) ; Ludvík, Jan (referee)
This thesis strives to raise and answer three questions about the concept of hybrid warfare: What concepts of hybrid warfare exist so far? How similar or different are they? How useful are they from conceptual standpoint? The questions are answered by a conceptual analysis consisting of survey of existing concepts, their comparison and detailed evaluation of two of them on the basis of criteria of conceptualization. The answers revealed several important issues of the concept. Firstly, there are too many different concepts of hybrid warfare, often formulated with insufficient care for previous debates and already established concepts. Secondly, the formulated concepts of hybrid warfare are often different to a degree, which calls into question the claim, that all of them are trying to capture the same phenomenon. Lastly, even the better elaborated of the hybrid warfare concepts seem to be rather poorly conceptualized and not very useful. These three answers together cast shadow of doubt on the currently popular concept of hybrid warfare. The results of this work call for more careful thinking on whether and how the use of this concept is helping or hurting both our understanding of contemporary conflicts and our defence efforts against contemporary threats.
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