Defence & Strategy

Disintegration of the Soviet empire evoked acute necessity to solve doctrinal and strategic issues of national security by new actors, i. e. former states of the Warsaw Pact. Since the beginning, it was clear that peculiar scientific schools supportive to requirements of the security praxis are absent. Therefore, it is obvious that while creating new security strategies of the mentioned states (including former Czechoslovakia), the knowledge and know-how of subsistent and implanted scientific schools in the field of national security were applied. However, the subsequent developments have not only created both room and conditions for a free scholastic activity, but also societal praxis by itself have created a call for research on security issues in its complexities. The identification of necessities and calls is being reflected in existing opinions on security science. The security science should not only develop new theoretical concepts, but should also fulfill requirements of the praxis. The ambition of such perception’s supporters is not to suppress different concepts, but to find a platform for a consensus in the field of security research.

Some people even claim that in recent times there has been a debate flared up over the alleged need to establish a new scientific direction. Because the critics of securitology as a science derive from the Masaryk University in Brno [Zdeněk KŘÍŽ, Miroslav MAREŠ, Petr SUCHÝ Securitology: Pseudoscience, no Metascience. “DEFENCE & STRATEGY” 2/2007, p. 117-124.], and at the same time securitology has its representatives. Therefore, it is justified to present the subject and methodology of the science (sciences) of security in the Journal DEFENCE & STRATEGY. This paper covers: 1. historical premises and justification of the science (sciences) of security, 2. justification of the subject of research in relation to dimensions (levels) of the researched object, 3. security as the lack of danger and security as a function of various factors, 4. sources and kinds of dangers, 5. security as an objective and/or subjective condition, 6. methodological foundations of the science (sciences) of security, 7. the source of the notion securitology.