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Approved for public release; distribution is unlimited / This thesis identifies and explains the critical changes that have occurred in the complex system of interrelated rules which have governed the defense budget process in Poland since 1989. This research explains the legal and institutional evolution of the defense budget process in post-communist Poland, focusing on the role of legislative authority i.e., the Sejm and the Senat of the Republic of Poland within the defense budget process since the collapse of the Warsaw Pact. It also analyzes the distribution of power among the different actors in the budget cycle. This is followed by a thorough description of rules imposed by the Law on Restructuring, Technical Modernization and Financing of the Polish Armed Forces in the Years 2001-2006, and the Act of Equipping the Armed Forces of the Republic of Poland with Multi-Role Aircraft. These two documents were instrumental in shaping defense spending in Poland in the years 2001-2003 and will have a great impact on future decisions concerning defense budgets in the years to come. An overview of defense spending by European members of NATO is also provided to allow a comparison of Poland's willingness to commit resources to the common defense of other NATO members. / Captain, Polish Air Forces

Abstract For most of the Cold War, the United States attempted to maintain friendly relations with the Communist nations comprising the Eastern Bloc, but with no other Soviet satellite was the relationship as close as it was with Romania. No other member nation of the Warsaw Pact took to the United States’ overtures so eagerly. Diplomatic relations between the United States and the Romanian Communist government were established relatively early, almost immediately following the end of the Second World War. However, it was not until 1968, when Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceauşescu denounced the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia, that the Romanians finally gained the Americans’ trust. Ceauşescu’s 1968 speech attacking the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia, and the diplomatic maneuverings surrounding it, was the pivotal moment in the relationship between the two nations, fostering an amicable relationship that would last well into the 1980s.

New archival materials have become available that allow us to test the conventional interpretation of Warsaw Pact policy towards conventional arms reductions in Europe. They shed new light on the objectives of the Eastern side in talks on mutual and balanced arms reductions, how it approached the dispute over the assessments of the military balance and sought to preserve its advantages while constraining West German military capabilities, and demonstrate that Soviet military leaders perceived a shift in the conventional military balance in favour of the West in the 1980s.

No / The military dimension of the Cold War was characterised by the strategic nuclear stand-off between the United States and the Soviet Union as well as the large-scale regional military confrontation in Central Europe. As part of the process of East-West détente there was an effort to address the risks of war in Europe by means of an arms control process referred to as MBFR (Mutual and Balanced Force Reductions). The true purposes and intentions of both sides (NATO and the Warsaw Pact) in these negotiations has so far not been fully understood. This book is based on path-breaking archival research that clarifies the objectives and tactics of the parties to the negotiations and the reasons for why the negotiations ended without an agreement. It makes a major new contribution to the understanding of Cold War History.

This Thesis is to examine the topic of the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe which took place in 1973-1975. The proposals to convene the Security Conference date back to the fifties, when the Soviet Union called on the European countries to attend the Conference in order to resolve the security situation in Europe. During my research, I asked what motives were behind the invitation to convene the Conference and what caused the failure of these initiatives. I prove that the ultimate goal of the Soviet Union was not the conclusion of the collective agreement, but rather to weaken the West. In chronologic order I follow the development of the relations between the Warsaw Pact and the NATO in the sixties, which eventually led to the start of the Conference in 1973. I also describe interests of groups of countries during the Conference and analyze their role in the adoption of the Final Act.

The thesis titled "The TV program of the Czechoslovak television from the year 1968 till April of 1970" deals with the program offer from the period of so-called Prague Spring until the end of April 1970 when the second transmitter circuit was ready to start. I chose this time period because of frequent changes in politics and society, which was reflected in the media content, and thus in the TV content. This time segment is divided into four time periods in which I monitor the program offer of the TV. The first period is the period of Prague Spring, the second one is from September 1969 to April 1970 when Gustáv Husák became the first secretary of the ÚV KSČ, the third one is from May 1969 to August 1970 when Jan Zelenka became the director of Czechoslovak television (he was considered as the first normalization director) and the fourth period is from September 1969 to April 1970, when the second transmitter circuit was ready to start. The main aims of this thesis are detailed description and comparison of TV offers in these four periods. To achieve the objectives a comparative analysis is used. I analyze mostly weekly magazines Československá televize of the years 1968, 1969 and 1970. The information gained from these magazines is accompanied by other written sources, pictorial records programs...

The aim of the dissertation is to explain the military-political reasons behind the long-term attempt of the Soviet Union to deploy its units on Czechoslovak territory, as well as the root cause of the military operation against Czechoslovakia which was carried out by the five member armies of the Warsaw Pact. One of the main reasons for this was the military and strategic situation in Central Europe in the 1960's, and also the issue of nuclear weapons and their carriers. A separate chapter is dedicated to Soviet attempts to deploy its units on Czechoslovak territory prior to Operation Danube. The final chapter deals with the reorganization of the CPA, the establishment of the CGV and the NATO reaction to the change in the strenght of armed forces present on the border of the two Blocs.

This master thesis, The reform movement and the normalization of relations in Jihlava (1960-1971), maps the course of that period in Jihlava, the capital of the region Vysočina. The first part of this work includes a brief introduction into the atmosphere in Czechoslovakia in 1960s and the historical development in Jihlava in the same period. The second chapter describes the course of events from the beginning of year 1968, colloquially called "The Prague Spring". New politicians ascended to the politic power and established a new theory, which was called "Socialism with a human face". The third part deals with the invasion of the Warsaw Pact army of Czechoslovakia on 21st August 1968. The text focuses mainly on Jihlava. The fifth chapter describes the course of events in Czechoslovakia since the second half of year 1968 to April 1971. This period is called normalization and is characterized by retreating from the post-January policy, personnel changes, restoring censorship, etc. The last part of the thesis concerns itself with Evžen Plocek. He was an active reform politician in Jihlava and committed suicide in April 1969. He burned himself to death due to the consequences of the Warsaw Pact army invasion of The Czechoslovak Socialist Republic in 1968.

Ph.D. thesis abstract PhDr. Matěj Bílý The Ph.D. thesis "The Warsaw Treaty Organization 1969-1985. The pinnacle and path to dissolution" analyses inside processes within both political and military structures of the alliance and puts it in the context of the Cold War's development and the events in the Soviet sphere of influence in Europe. It deals mostly with the climax of the Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev's rule, however, attention is paid also to the short intermezzo of his successors, Yuri Andropov and Konstantin Chernenko. The work is based on a broad research in the Czech, Polish and German archives, already published documents and the proper secondary literature. The explanation focuses not only to the development of the organization's mechanisms - it also asses the Warsaw Pact's role as one of the Kremlin's tools for managing the Eastern Bloc. Nonetheless, during Brezhnev's era, the alliance never became an initiator of processes within the Soviet sphere of interest. In fact, the organization's structures were not very initiative. The agenda of meetings was defined elsewhere, most often in Moscow. The activities in the alliance's framework did not constitute a starting-point for the development in the Soviet sphere of influence. On the contrary, the processes within the Warsaw Treaty Organization...