Outlook
The outlook in the Balkans for the next years indicates rather reductions due to political and economic developments this year, which seem to be much more probable in this year than in the past years.
In Syria political solutions aiming at the stabilisation of the country seem to be only a distant prospect. The United Nations’ interest in this area will be that UN missions, which have been going on for a long time, will be continued in the next years.
In this context, measures adjusted to the core of the mandate, monitoring the cease-fire agreementare to be expected on the part of the United Nations in the event of the situation suffers a severe deterioration. Last but not the least, from the UN viewpoint maintaining UNDOF and UNTSO, even at a strongly reduced level, will be better than completely pulling out these troops.
With the EU supporting the training of the Armed Forces of Mali, a possible operation in Africa, frequently mentioned in the past few years, is taking shape. The creation of the EU Trainings Mission Mali (EUTM) reveals the common intentions and efforts by the EU to be active within a framework spanning as many EU nations as possible, while France carries out the active part of Operation SERVAL, aimed against rebel fighters.
The clear decision of the Austrian population in the referendum in favour of continuing conscription resulted in the clear task to train male citizens for the duration of six months. In whatever way the discussions about the domestic and the international tasks of the Austrian Armed Forces will affect the national decision on the implementation of the security doctrine, without doubt the demands of short-notice and complex operations on the soldiers will rise to an extent that an even higher degree of professionalism will be called for on the part of military elements.