The Doctrine of Total People´s Defence ‒ what Yugoslav armed forces learned from their past

Abstract

The article presents the development of the Yugoslav Military Doctrine and the Yugoslav Armed Forces from 1945 to the 1980s. The Socialist Federative Republic of Yugoslavia developed the concept of General People’s Resistance and Social Self-Protection which was defending the freedom, national independence, sovereignity, and the self-managing socio-political system. The new doctrine also formed two defence components, the Yugoslav People’s Army as the operational army, and the Territorial Defence as the highest organisational form of defence and armed combat under the authority of republics and regions. Despite the well-conceived concept of the General People’s Defence and Social SelfProtection, the latter failed to find answers on how to defy the “internal enemy” and how to solve internal political, economic, and national problems, which amassed in Yugoslavia of the 1970s and the 1980s. Slovenian Territorial Defence was something positive, which derived from the Doctrine of Total People’s Defence. Since its establishment in 1968, the Slovenian Territorial Defence developed differently from the other federal republics and was increasingly considered as the Slovenian armed forces.