GEN Josef Bečvář

Dear colleagues and participants,

In the second half of October 2016, Prague will be the venue to the Future Forces Forum (FFF) project that offers a welcome opportunity for all servicemembers of the Czech Armed Forces to expand their familiarity with the latest trends in defence and security.

The FFF project primarily focuses on seeking practical and realistic answers to future challenges and threats. In this kind of events, it is of central importance to induce an appropriate constructive environment, which FFF organisers manage truly successfully in cooperation with the Czech Armed Forces and other partners. The global networking platform offers ideal opportunities for presenting interests of the Czech Armed Forces and for meeting experts from the Czech Republic, other nations and multinational security organisations.

The FFF offers exclusive access to the latest outcomes of science and research, including demonstrations of possibilities and offers by industries in innovative, dual and smart technologies. The vehicle the FFF project uses to establish possible cooperation primarily involves the combination of theoretical specialist solutions presented in the congress, conferences, workshops and meetings with leading officials, experts, manufacturers and users with practical demonstrations on site. For us, the soldiers, it is also an opportunity to obtain information, achieve enhanced interoperability, better deliver the commitments to our NATO Partners and make use of the doorway to some universities and schools educating possible future experts.

While the project has been recently rebranded, it builds on several previous editions of similarly conceived successful international project Future Soldier and Future Forces. Thanks to the FFF project, Prague remains one of the venues for the leading personalities of the international security community to meet on regular basis. The centrality of the Czech Armed Forces’ participation in the project is underscored by our active participation in the specialised events prepared in conjunction with experienced representatives from NATO expert groups, COE JCBRN D in Vyškov or indeed Prague-based MLCC.

As the Chief of General Staff Czech Armed Forces, it is my pleasure to again express my support to the project that I believe is up to highest professional standards and brings multiple benefits. Topics proposed for 2016 are very interesting. I am therefore confident that our experts as experienced users will voice their opinions in individual parts of the program.

With best wishes for the success of the Future Forces Forum project, I am looking forward, together with other officials of the Czech Armed Forces High Command, to meeting FFF participants in Prague.

GEN Josef BEČVÁŘ 
Chief of the General Staff of Armed Forces of the Czech Republic