Emergency Situations in Peacetime and Wartime

Objective: to form students' knowledge of the concept of an emergency situation in peacetime and wartime, and its inherent characteristics.

1.The concept of an emergency situation.

Natural and technogenic (man-made) cataclysms are constant companions of humanity. The high level of industrial development of modern society, along with its positive aspects, also gives rise to negative phenomena - accidents and disasters comparable to, or even exceeding, natural ones in the severity of their consequences.

An accident is understood to mean a technogenic emergency event that has occurred due to design, production, technical or operational causes, or due to random external influences, and that consists in the damage, failure or destruction of technical devices (structures) and harm to the environment.

A catastrophe is understood to mean a major accident that has entailed loss of human life, significant material damage and other severe consequences.

A natural disaster - a catastrophic natural phenomenon (or process) that may cause loss of human life, significant material damage and other severe consequences.

An environmental disaster (catastrophe) - an emergency event of a particularly large scale, caused by a change (under the influence of anthropogenic factors) in the state of the land, atmosphere, hydrosphere and biosphere, and that has had a negative effect on people's health, their spiritual sphere, environment, economy or gene pool. Environmental disasters are often accompanied by irreversible changes to the natural environment.

An emergency situation (ES) - a situation in a given territory arising as a result of an accident, a hazardous natural phenomenon, a catastrophe, a natural or other disaster, which may entail or have entailed loss of human life, damage to human health or to the natural environment, significant material losses and disruption of people's living conditions.

Analysis of emergency situations over the last three years (the period from 2005 to 2008) shows that approximately 75% of them are connected with technogenic phenomena and 25% with natural phenomena and events.

2 General classification of emergency situations.

Emergency situations is the term customarily used for circumstances arising as a result of natural disasters (natural), accidents and catastrophes in industry and transport (technogenic), environmental catastrophes, and as a result of armed conflicts and military operations in a given territory (wartime emergency situations), which are characterised by a sharp departure from accepted norms of people's living conditions and which have a significant effect on the natural environment, the economy and the social sphere.

Peacetime emergency situations (ES) may be classified according to the assessment and scale of possible consequences (the number of people affected in these situations, the number of people whose living conditions have been disrupted, the amount of material damage, as well as the boundaries of the zones affected by the damaging factors of the emergency), and are divided, in accordance with the Government Decree

A local emergency situation is one in which no more than 10 people were affected, the living conditions of no more than 100 people were disrupted, or the material damage amounts to no more than 1 thousand minimum wages as of the day the emergency arose, and the zone of the emergency situation does not extend beyond the territory of a production or social-purpose facility.

A local-municipal emergency situation is one in which from 10 to 50 people were affected, or the living conditions of more than 100 but no more than 300 people were disrupted, or the material damage amounts to more than 1 thousand but no more than 5 thousand minimum wages as of the day of the emergency, and the zone of the emergency does not extend beyond a settlement, town or district.

A territorial emergency situation is one in which from 50 to 500 people were affected, or the living conditions of from 300 to 500 people were disrupted, or the material damage amounts to more than 5 thousand but no more than 0.5 million minimum wages as of the day of the emergency, and the zone of the emergency does not extend beyond the constituent territory.

A regional emergency situation is one in which from 50 to 500 people were affected, the living conditions of more than 500 but no more than 1000 people were disrupted, or the material damage amounts to more than 0.5 million but no more than 5 million minimum wages as of the day of the emergency, and the zone of the emergency covers the territory of two constituent regions.

A national emergency situation is one in which more than 500 people were affected, the living conditions of more than 1000 people were disrupted, or the material damage amounted to more than 5 million minimum wages as of the day of the emergency, and the zone of the emergency extends beyond more than two constituent regions of the country.

A transboundary emergency situation is one whose damaging factors extend beyond the borders of the country, or an emergency situation that occurred abroad and affects the territory of the entire country.

3.Classification of emergency situations by nature.

Classification and characteristics of emergency situations of a natural character and their possible consequences.

4 Assessment of hazards of a military nature. Classification. Characteristics.

From the emergence of statehood to the present day, people have not learned to avoid the use of force or the threat of force in resolving conflicts between peoples and countries. History abounds in wars and military conflicts. Scholars have calculated that over the last 5,500 years there have been more than 15 thousand wars on Earth, and people have lived in peace for only 300 years. In the wars of the last four centuries the following died:

17th century — 3 million people;

18th century — more than 5 million people;

19th century — 6 million people;

20th century — more than 70 million people.

In just the last 50 years, local wars and armed conflicts have flared up more than 250 times around the world.

The development of technogenic civilisation presupposes a struggle for markets and the seizure of new raw material resources and territories. This leads to wars as a means of resolving contradictions between states.

Wars. War — is a socio-political phenomenon representing a struggle between states, peoples and nations using means of armed, economic, informational, psychological or other violence.

For centuries and millennia, the main, and often the only, element of wars was armed struggle. Territories were conquered, rulers overthrown and material assets seized by means of armed violence.

But times changed, and so did the picture of wars. A modern war can be waged and achieve its goals even without armed struggle. Economic, political, informational, ideological, psychological and other forms of confrontation are becoming ever more significant. If such confrontations acquire excessive scale, they essentially become wars, since, on their own, without armed struggle, they achieve the political goals of wars.

An example of a war without the use of weapons can be seen in the so-called Cold War waged by a coalition of states against the USSR. At the cost of enormous effort, suffering and losses, the Soviet Union achieved victory over the fascist Germany that had treacherously attacked it. But as a result of prolonged, comprehensive political, economic, informational-psychological and other influence, Soviet troops left the Germany that had been defeated in the Great Patriotic War, and the Soviet Union itself collapsed, having lost the "Cold War".

At the turn of the 20th—21st centuries, informational-psychological confrontation is becoming ever more significant and dangerous for humanity. Its object is the consciousness not only of soldiers, but also of the enemy's population, and its main instrument is informational weaponry.

Armed struggle. When the opposing sides employ means of armed struggle, military conflicts, armed conflicts and wars arise.

A military conflict is understood to mean any military confrontation: wars of various scale involving the use of means of armed struggle, border armed conflicts or armed clashes within the territory of a single state, military actions, demonstrative-provocative actions and other forms of the use of military force.

An international military conflict takes the form of an armed action or armed clash between states in a particular district (region).

An internal military conflict — is a military confrontation within a single state. It is characterised by the danger of transformation into a local or civil war, a complex socio-political situation, the widespread use of non-traditional (guerrilla) methods of conducting combat operations, and a high degree of involvement of the local population in it.

An armed conflict — is a type of military conflict characterised by the direct use of means of armed struggle.

A large-scale armed conflict — is a war. In a war, the goals pursued by the sides and the means employed are no longer as limited as in an armed conflict.

Not every armed conflict is a war, but every war involving the use of means of armed struggle —is an armed conflict.

Classification of military conflicts.

Modern military conflicts (wars), in accordance with their military-political goals, the means of armed struggle employed and the scale of military operations, are classified as follows:

By military-political goals:

• just, that is, not contrary to the UN Charter, the fundamental principles and norms of international law, waged in self-defence by the side that has been attacked;

• unjust, that is, contrary to the UN Charter, the fundamental principles and norms of international law, falling under the definition of aggression and waged by the side that has carried out the attack.

By means employed:

• involving the use of nuclear and other types of weapons of mass destruction;

• involving the use of conventional means of destruction only.

By scale of military operations:

• global;

• local (regional).

5.Transformation of the content of armed struggle.

The improvement of fortresses and catapults, swords and armour; the invention of gunpowder; the use of cavalry and artillery, tanks and aircraft; the creation of firearms, missile-nuclear and other weapons — all this inevitably led to changes in the content of armed struggle. Nevertheless, all previous wars are characterised as contact-based and symmetrical, that is, weapon against weapon, force against force, forms and methods of conducting combat operations against almost identical forms and methods. In the First and Second World Wars, positional forms of struggle predominated; a front line ran between the opposing sides, and the front and rear were clearly discernible.

Since the end of the 20th century, armed struggle has undergone significant changes.

The most important feature of modern armed struggle is the widespread use of non-contact actions, in which strikes are delivered without the carriers entering the zone of destruction. In wars of the new generation, the decisive role is assigned not to a large number of ground troops, nor to nuclear weapons, but to high-precision weapons of various basing modes and weapons based on new physical principles.

A distinctive feature of modern armed struggle is the widespread use of mobile forces and special-purpose troops. The actions of special operations forces and irregular troops, and terrorist acts, are becoming increasingly important. In modern warfare there may be no single front line. The enemy may seem not to be there, yet is everywhere and capable of displaying sophistication in delivering selective strikes against vitally important facilities.

Great importance in modern and future wars is assigned to informational weaponry, directed both against armed forces and against the enemy's entire population. The blurring of the boundaries between military and non-military means of struggle is becoming increasingly evident. The high effectiveness of information warfare tools, combined with the use of high-precision weapons, makes it possible to disorganise the system of state administration and suppress the population's morale.

The central place in the military conflicts of the 21st century will be occupied by the informational aspects of operations and the establishment of dominance in the aerospace domain.

The features of wars of the 21st century will be: the massed use of high-precision destruction means; the active operations of sabotage-reconnaissance forces; non-traditional methods of conducting armed struggle; and the destruction of particularly important facilities of the economy and infrastructure.

Combat operations at the operational-tactical level will become multidimensional in the full sense of the word, and strategic operations will undergo significant changes. The following forms of conducting military operations will become dominant:

• -in the air - with a predominance of low-observable, long-range unmanned aerial vehicles;
• -on land - strikes to great depth;
• -at sea - with the use of underwater strike systems;
• -combat operations in space and from space;
• -in the information domain - operations conducted independently and jointly with other types of military action.

The emergence of ever more sophisticated, long-range, high-precision destruction means will create an ever greater threat to rear-area facilities.

Military operations will acquire a significantly greater spatial scope and become more short-lived, though this will not necessarily mean a reduction in the duration of wars. Given the threat of possible planetary climatic changes of the "nuclear night" or "nuclear winter" type, the massed use by the sides of missile-nuclear weapons at the beginning of the 21st century appears unlikely. However, this does not rule out its use for demonstration purposes, isolated use by terrorists, and limited use by troops with the aim of disrupting state and military command-and-control systems and destroying the most important economic facilities in the course of conflict escalation.

Alongside the improvement of existing military-space systems, including the global military-space system of navigation, reconnaissance, target designation and guidance, and reconnaissance-strike and reconnaissance-fire complexes, research is being conducted into the development of new types of high-power explosives, ultra-fast information networks and data-processing systems, plasma-based electronic warfare equipment, and special graphite warheads.

Knowledge check: Answer the following questions:

1.What forms of confrontation, besides armed struggle, are used in modern wars? What is war?

2.What is a military conflict and an armed conflict?

3.How are military conflicts classified according to military-political goals, means employed and the scale of military operations?

4.What are the features of modern armed struggle?