Territorial Defence Forces as a Key Element of Effective Civil Defence.Missed Opportunities, Possible Directions of Change

Abstract

The article presents the marginal role of the Territorial Defence Force (WOT) in civil defence within the framework of the current legislation on population protection and civil defence. The central rese-arch question asks to what extent the WOT could become a key element of an effective civil defence system. The study proceeds from the hypothesis that civil defence focuses primarily on crisis response, leading to its integration with existing crisis management systems in many areas. The WOT’s limited involvement in civil defence tasks stems largely from a lack of precise legal regulations. The research employed theoretical met-hods, including analysis, synthesis, comparative interpretation, abstraction, and inference. The analysis cove-red the essence of civil defence, the potential scope for integrating it with current crisis management, the tasks assigned to the WOT within the civil defence framework, and possible changes to enhance the WOT’s role in this domain. The findings reveal significant shortcomings in the current system resulting from existing legal arrangements. Incorporating the WOT into civil defence operations would enable the force to play a pivotal role in this area. However, the conclusions emphasize that this requires a comprehensive approach, encompassing legislative and organizational changes as well as the full integration of population protection and civil defence with crisis management.