The article presents the evolution of the Russian idea of military operations as a form of implementing security policy. Significant changes in the concept of conducting hybrid operations were pointed out in relation to the way they were carried out in the process of the annexation of the Crimean Peninsula and during the Russian intervention in Syria. It was shown that the concept of the reconstruction of the armed forces since 2018 has been aimed at both preparing them for the implementation of the so-called integrated operations, expanding the external defence zone, and performing antiaccess operations. This is to be achieved by adequately saturating the armed forces with the necessary means to conduct such a task and by practically implementing the active defence strategy, which assumes that Russia will take pre-emptive actions based on precise planning algorithms. The Russian strategy of active defence is complemented by a strategy of limited operations. According to Russian experts, this strategy should involve external actions to protect and promote Russian interests abroad. The analyses demonstrate that the Russians have decided that the basic form of contemporary and future political-military conflict will be a non-linear conflict with a dynamic course. That is why a key role has been assigned to both kinetic and non-kinetic instrumentation capabilities and special operations with a comprehensive scope. To implement these plans, a thorough reform of the armed forces was carried out in terms of restructuring the organization, reforming the training system and modernizing the armaments. The main phase of the reforms had been successfully implemented by December 2020, despite the sanctions. The experience of Syria and the Donbass influenced the transformation of the Russian military doctrine. Its most important assumption was to move away from the primacy of synchronized non-military actions within a non-kinetic destabilizing operation. The concept of coordinated use of military and non-military means with a decisive role of the armed forces has become the basic form of conducting operations of this type.

In recent years, nothing has contributed so much to the development and digital expansion of technology, including the field of cashless transactions, as the situation caused by the global COVID-19 pandemic. Increased traffic of electronic payments and virtual currencies may generate more interest in these areas from criminal groups. The number of fraudulent card transactions in the first half of 2020 increased by 11.4% compared to the second half of 2019. Among the new regulatory trends in AML/CTF in the field of virtual currencies, the Digital Finance Package should be distinguished. It consists of the Proposal for a Regulation of the European Parliament on markets in crypto-assets and amendments to the AML/CTF Act. The specificity and formalism of these rules, but also the related operating costs, may lead to a significant collapse in the virtual currencies market and the escape of investors and money to Asian markets. The current regulations are a manifestation of a total legal solution, which will not favour technological development.

The disruptions in cloud computing are an important aspect in the global security environment. An instrumental case study method has been used to analyse this problem. Two relevant examples are discussed which are typical of literature in the field. Firstly, the problem of the growing complexity of the cloud is described. One of the service outages of a global cloud provider is used as an example. It indicates that even relatively small failures might trigger a cascade effect and far-reaching breakdowns. Secondly, the suspension and – as the result of this suspension – the standstill of the social media company Parler is analysed. It is used as the example of the so-called vendor lock-in problem in cloud computing, which renders undisrupted migration to other vendors particularly hard – and at times even impossible. Aforementioned issues have been so far studied mostly from the perspective of the continuity of enterprises, cybersecurity, or privacy. The key phenomenon crucial for the global security environment is usually omitted, namely that the cloud computing has become “the Internet’s invisible infrastructure”.

The paper presents an analysis of the present-day process of remote identification. On this basis, the most important weaknesses of the methods were diagnosed. With regard to non-biometric methods, the main weakness and limitation is that they only verify if the user (the person being verified) has appropriate credentials, and they do not verify the identity per se. On the other hand, the currently applied biometric methods are time-consuming and subjective in assessing the compliance of biometric data with the template. An alternative to these methods is a model, presented in this paper, which is based on fully automated, remote biometric identification using biometric data contained in IDs and passports as a template. The model is free from the weaknesses and limitations of other biometric and non-biometric identification methods analysed in this paper and has a very low error rate.

The aim of the article is an attempt to define the sharp power strategy, present characteristic ways of its employment and propose methods of minimizing its negative consequences for the security of the Republic of Poland. The analysis of the issues related to the types of state power (soft power, hard power, smart power) is followed by a coherent definition of sharp power formulated by the authors of the publication. The consecutive section of the article describes examples of methods of implementing the aforementioned strategy of influencing participants of international relations. Finally, the authors presented proposals for institutional and legal solutions, which are to counteract potential sharp power moves aimed at undermining the security and international position of the Republic of Poland.

The object of this article is to show the reasons for the emergence and the basic assumptions of the new dimension of Marxism (referred to as the cultural Marxism or neo-Marxism). Despite its certain transformation, the essence of the ideology remains unchanged, namely its pursuit to establish a materialistic and totalitarian dictatorship. The world today appears to be dominated by communism, in one form or another. It is thought-provoking that the theses, which are in fact Marxist, are seen today as having no connection with Marxism. Likewise, the international community undertakes extensive cooperation with China (the People’s Republic of China). Since communism moves towards the establishment of a totalitarian dictatorship, and the modern world is dominated by communism, are we heading towards a servile future?

The article discusses the administrative regulations regarding the classified information protection system in the USA. Moreover, it presents the effective penal code provisions directed against the disclosure of classified information in the USA and their interpretations. What is more, the paper presents the administrative provisions regulating the procedure for carrying out security background investigation of public administration officials in order to issue a security clearance which grants them access to classified information. Further, the reasons for the classification of information and its protection with an adequate classification clause are explained. On the basis of the analysis of US regulations, a conclusion is drawn that Polish legislation does not include a justification for depositaries of secrets who disclose classified information (without obtaining the affirmation from the authorities specified by law) to prosecute the perpetrators of crimes. This could be the basis to formulate postulates de lege ferenda. It should be noted that the article does not exhaust the topic, but only indicates selected issues of the protection system of classified information in the USA. Initiated study can be used to carry out in-depth comparative research in this field in the future.

This paper is entirely devoted to the prerequisite of obligatory suspension of an officer of the Internal Security Agency or the Foreign Intelligence Agency. This regulation is included in the Article 58 sec. 1 of the Act on the Internal Security Agency and the Foreign Intelligence Agency. Suspension from official duties is obligatory in the event of an initiation of criminal proceedings in the case of an intent offence subjected to a public accusation. Therefore, attention was focused on the wording: “initiation of criminal proceedings in the case of intent offence prosecuted with public accusation against an officer of the International Security Agency and the Foreign Intelligence Agency” as a condition enabling the use of the legal construct included in Article 58 sec. 1 of the Act on the International Security Agency and the Foreign Intelligence Agency. This happens in a situation of changing the phase of preparatory proceedings in the criminal case prosecuted against an officer of the International Security Agency or the Foreign Intelligence Agency from in rem to ad personam, submitting subsidiary indictment to the court and reopening of the criminal proceedings.

The series of terrorist attacks on 11 September 2001 in the USA, the largest in the history of the world, was carried out by 19 people. Among them were 15 Saudis, two UAE nationals, a Lebanese and an Egyptian. Three of the four formed the Hamburg cell, which was the backbone of the entire plot. It was led by the Egyptian Muhammad Atta el-Sayed. He flew Boeing 767 aircraft American Airlines Flight 11, which first struck the North Tower of the WTC. Marwan al-Shehhi was the pilot of Boeing 767 aircraft United Airlines Flight 175, which crashed into the South Tower of the WTC. Hani Hanjour sat at the controls of the Boeing 757 aircraft American Airlines flight 77. It was the third machine to target the Pentagon. The pilot of the fourth plane - Boeing 757 aircraft United Airlines Flight 93 - Ziad Jarrah failed to reach his destination, possibly the Capitol, because the passengers decided to take over the control of the plane from the terrorists. The machine crashed in Pennsylvania. In the events of 9/11, a total of 2,996 people were killed, including 19 terrorists, and 6,291 were injured . Six Poles were among the fatalities. 343 firefighters died in the rescue operation.
The attacks caused enormous material losses. Particularly high costs were incurred by insurance and reinsurance companies, airlines and aircraft manufacturers, as well as the tourism industry. The huge losses related to the destruction of the New York City World Trade Center and the disruption of the financial system had to be covered by insurance companies involved in the operations on the American market.
The terrorist attack on the USA was the impetus for the largest reform of the American secret services since 1947. Washington made a decision regarding the need to create a system that would effectively counteract terrorist threats and effectively warn in the event of their occurrence. This was related to the strengthening of structures with operational and reconnaissance powers, increasing the scope of their tasks and improving their ability to coordinate. Most of the legal regulations were expressed in the document commonly known as the USA Patriot Act of 26 October 2001. The most critical, however, were the international repercussions. By the attacks on the WTC and the Pentagon, al-Qaeda influenced world politics by prompting Washington to declare a “war on terror”. Within its framework, American forces, supporting the so-called Northern Alliance led to the collapse of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, and then entered Iraq, which in the long run turned out to be one of the most spectacular and deadly strategic mistakes in the history of the military.
At the same time the September 11 attacks sparked many conspiracy theories. Their propagation in the media, in documentaries, as well as in articles, contributed to undermining trust in the American government. An organization called Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth which boasts 3.3 thousand architects and engineers from all over the United States, is still very active in researching the case of 7 WTC. Its mission is to establish the truth that the twin towers did not collapse due to the impact of terrorist-piloted planes, as well as the destruction of WTC 7 was not a result of the detachment of a fragment of the second plane. In the opinion of members of this organisation, the damage caused by the planes was far from sufficient to lead to such a catastrophe. They believe someone must have planted explosives.

Keywords: Al-Qaeda, terrorist attack, Hamburg cell, Pentagon, WTC.

The article examines the problem of the type of mitigated crime of electoral corruption. The author discusses examples of behaviour enabling criminal qualification under Art. 250a § 3 of the Penal Code, as well as situations that do not allow the application of this regulation. He also considers the legitimacy of isolating a minor accident in the normative structure of the election corruption crime, as well as the proposed legislative changes in this regard.

The aim of the article was to present the characteristics of operational deception used by the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation and to broaden the understanding of the evolution of operations using Maskirovka. Particular attention was paid to examples of its use in contemporary wars and armed conflicts - primarily in the conflict in Ukraine and in the Five-Day War in Georgia. The analysis led to an identification of trends regarding the use of deception in contemporary and future conflicts and activities other than war. It shows that the maskirovka will be increasingly used to achieve strategic goals and shape international opinion. One of the most important areas of its application will be cyberspace, enabling more effective disinformation and propaganda activities, including information warfare. Considering the dynamic development of technology and capabilities of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation in the field of operational masking, it is justified to conduct further research in the Maskirovka area.

The aim of the article is an attempt to define the sharp power strategy, present characteristic ways of its employment and propose methods of minimizing its negative consequences for the security of the Republic of Poland. The analysis of the issues related to the types of state power (soft power, hard power, smart power) is followed by a coherent definition of sharp power formulated by the authors of the publication. The consecutive section of the article describes examples of methods of implementing the aforementioned strategy of influencing participants of international relations. Finally, the authors presented proposals for institutional and legal solutions, which are to counteract potential sharp power moves aimed at undermining the security and international position of the Republic of Poland.

The series of terrorist attacks on 11 September 2001 in the USA, the largest in the history of the world, was carried out by 19 people. Among them were 15 Saudis, two UAE nationals, a Lebanese and an Egyptian. Three of the four formed the Hamburg cell, which was the backbone of the entire plot. It was led by the Egyptian Muhammad Atta el-Sayed. He flew Boeing 767 aircraft American Airlines Flight 11, which first struck the North Tower of the WTC. Marwan al-Shehhi was the pilot of Boeing 767 aircraft United Airlines Flight 175, which crashed into the South Tower of the WTC. Hani Hanjour sat at the controls of the Boeing 757 aircraft American Airlines flight 77. It was the third machine to target the Pentagon. The pilot of the fourth plane - Boeing 757 aircraft United Airlines Flight 93 - Ziad Jarrah failed to reach his destination, possibly the Capitol, because the passengers decided to take over the control of the plane from the terrorists. The machine crashed in Pennsylvania. In the events of 9/11, a total of 2,996 people were killed, including 19 terrorists, and 6,291 were injured . Six Poles were among the fatalities. 343 firefighters died in the rescue operation.
The attacks caused enormous material losses. Particularly high costs were incurred by insurance and reinsurance companies, airlines and aircraft manufacturers, as well as the tourism industry. The huge losses related to the destruction of the New York City World Trade Center and the disruption of the financial system had to be covered by insurance companies involved in the operations on the American market.
The terrorist attack on the USA was the impetus for the largest reform of the American secret services since 1947. Washington made a decision regarding the need to create a system that would effectively counteract terrorist threats and effectively warn in the event of their occurrence. This was related to the strengthening of structures with operational and reconnaissance powers, increasing the scope of their tasks and improving their ability to coordinate. Most of the legal regulations were expressed in the document commonly known as the USA Patriot Act of 26 October 2001. The most critical, however, were the international repercussions. By the attacks on the WTC and the Pentagon, al-Qaeda influenced world politics by prompting Washington to declare a “war on terror”. Within its framework, American forces, supporting the so-called Northern Alliance led to the collapse of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, and then entered Iraq, which in the long run turned out to be one of the most spectacular and deadly strategic mistakes in the history of the military.
At the same time the September 11 attacks sparked many conspiracy theories. Their propagation in the media, in documentaries, as well as in articles, contributed to undermining trust in the American government. An organization called Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth which boasts 3.3 thousand architects and engineers from all over the United States, is still very active in researching the case of 7 WTC. Its mission is to establish the truth that the twin towers did not collapse due to the impact of terrorist-piloted planes, as well as the destruction of WTC 7 was not a result of the detachment of a fragment of the second plane. In the opinion of members of this organisation, the damage caused by the planes was far from sufficient to lead to such a catastrophe. They believe someone must have planted explosives.