This book gives us a survey of recruitment and mobilization in armed forces. The emphasis is given to the elaboration of peacetime and wartime reinforcement of armed forces, and in that framework the recruitment and mobilization in Croatia, France and Switzerland. In the elaboration of recruitment as a procedure through which novices are appropriated for the ability of army service and through which they are allotted to Army, Navy, Air Force, various army branches and specialties, an insight has been made on the rising importance of this topic for a present-day army. It has been noted that the analysis of a peacetime army reinforcement shows an increase in the number of regulars, ready to perform the most serious combat tasks. Therefore, a certain part of the book is dedicated to elite forces in some countries. Considering that armed forces of almost all countries consist of a peacetime and a wartime part, a wartime army reinforcement through the mobilization conduct is elaborated in the book. A regularity has been noted that the importance of mobilization in a country is dependent upon the extent of difference between the number of peacetime and wartime soldiers. The greater the difference, the greater the importance of mobilization in the system of defense. All in all, a conclusion can be drawn that mobilization, not only applied to armed forces, represents a strategical activity in the system of defense of a country, and because of that its detailed planning and carrying out is elaborated in the book, considering peculiarities in Croatia, France and Switzerland.

The subject of research in this book is the management of political systems and defense systems.   This management, as an activity determined by global goals of social development and the means of their realization, is as old as  organized  society  and  has  always  been  the  subject  of  human  interest. Theoreticians  primarily  researched  management  in  only  certain  fields. Politilogians studied management in political systems, representatives of scientific institutions studied labour in industry, and military theoreticians studied defense systems and military organization. With the development of various models of political systems throughout history, the relationship between political management and military management assumed various modalities.  This book elaborates upon three basic models of the relationship between management in political systems and within defense systems: when  the  management of defense is an instrument of political management; when the defense management is a factor in political decisionmaking; and when defense management is a factor that regulates the political management. Management of political systems, and within that framework managing defense systems, throughout history has depended primarily upon the goals of the society. The emergence of certain political systems in history influenced the methods of determining goals and the means of their realization. Thus we can distinguish between several characteristic models: such as civic authority, absolute monarchy, constitutional monarchy, dictatorship, and the republic with various arrangements. The republic is examined in four main variants: the presidential system such as in the United States of America and such as in the semipresidential system in France; the parliamentary system such as in Great Britain; the assembly system such as Switzerland; and the systems of countries in transition such as Croatia and Slovenia. In each case, the specific relationship between the management of the political system and the defense system are examined. From all of these examples it should be evident that each type of political relationship and political system is appropriate for a specific type of defense system, military organization and management, and that the management of the civilian and military spheres is inter-related in a cause-effect affinity. Furthermore, the management of defense and the military is a specific form of political and social management,  and  there exists a constant  struggle between military  and  civilian  authority;  in  non-democratic  societies  there  emerges conjugation of civilian and military authority and  the  militarisation of that society. The subjugation of military management under civilian authority and society is thus one of the basic conditions for the establishment, existence, and development of the democratic community.

The issue of minority nations and minorities has continuously been dealt with by the international community for decades. At the same time, minority nations and minorities are an internal problem for a number of countries who have had to solve it partly for their own political reasons, and more often under foreign pressures. An analysis of the majority-minority relations in western democracies points to a conclusion that the issue of minority nations and minorities has basically remained unsolved on international level, and, on the other hand, that very few countries can boast of fair treatment of minority nations in their history. The turbulent European history is characterized by a great number of wars waged because of unsolved national issues and lack of adequate mechanisms to protect the minority nations and national minorities. The recent European history, especially in the western part of the continent, proves the fact that the protection of minority nations and national minorities is essential for the stability, democracy, security and peace in Europe. The majority-minority relations in the western democracies are not on the same level in all the countries, neither can we speak about a universal model characteristic for the western democracy countries. Each of the countries with identifiable majority and minority nations and national minorities is building a specific model for their co-existence, conditioned primarily by their historical heritage and by the current international circumstances. This is shown by an analysis of the position of the minority nations and national minorities in the countries like Finland, Belgium, Germany, Denmark, Italy, Cyprus, Spain, Canada, Croatia, Yugoslavia, G. Britain and Switzerland. In the western democracy countries organized on the ethnic principle, both the majority and minority nations and the national minorities living in those countries, aware of the complexity of the ethnic majority-minority relations and of the dangers that can arise from them, have been making numerous concessions and compromises, arriving at definite models of coexistence. However, neither the majority nor the minority nations and national minorities have found it easy to make the compromises and the concessions. These were mostly the result of a definite foreign pressure, and were very rarely the result of the readiness of the national groups. When the concessions were given, in most cases everything was done to do it on a formal level rather than in reality. This is why the minority nations, regardless of the democratism of the model in the state where they live, always more or less openly advocate their sovereign rights, including the right to their own stare or annexing them to their mother country. In the current and historical perspective, the issues of minority nations and national minorities have a clearly discernible cultural dimension. This is where many people seek and recognize the essence of ethnic clashes. This is why, in looking for democratic mechanisms for the solution of conflicts and providing harmonious co-existence of the minority and majority national communities, cultural states and changes which can inl-luence the overall situation in the community are increasingly considered. There are efforts to make a cultural atmosphere which will increase tolerance and help to realistically see the problems the minority and of the majority and the means of solving them. Beside studying the position of the minority nations and national minorities in individual countries of the western democracy, the book also deals with general issues connected with the minority nations and national minorities, such as the global, regional and national security, the relationship between individual and collective rights, tolerance and confidence, and other current issues. The book also contains extracts from nearly all documents by the United Nations and European institutions relating to the position and rights of the minority nations and national minoritie.