Territorial Defense (Yugoslavia)

Following the end of the Second World War and the success of the Yugoslav Partisans in their resistance to the Axis powers, Yugoslavia became a socialist state. In 1948, following the Tito–Stalin split, Yugoslavia broke ties with the Soviet Union and its allies. During the Cold War, it was one of the leading members of the Non-Aligned Movement. After the Soviet Invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968, the concerns about an eventual Soviet attack started to rise within the Yugoslav leadership. The invasion of Czechoslovakia showed that the standing conventional forces of a small country could not repulse a surprise attack by a qualitatively and quantitatively superior aggressor. Being strategically positioned between the two major blocs, the NATO and the Warsaw Pact, Yugoslavia had to prepare its own military doctrine for a potential Third World War mass invasion scenario. ==Doctrine==

With the passing of the National Defense Law of 1969, Yugoslavia adopted a total war military doctrine named Total National Defense or ''Total People's Defense (ONO). It was inspired by the Yugoslav Partisan resistance movement against the Axis powers in the Second World War, and was designed to allow Yugoslavia to maintain or eventually reestablish its independent and non-aligned status should an invasion occur. According to it, any citizen who resists an aggressor is a member of the armed forces'', thus the whole population could be turned into a monolithic resistance army. Starting from the elementary school education, over high schools, universities, organizations and companies, the authorities prepared the entire population to contest an eventual occupation of the country and finally to liberate it. For this purpose, the Territorial Defense (TO) would be formed to mobilize the population in case of an aggression. The combat readiness of the TO meant that the steps of organization and training could be bypassed after the start of hostilities. The TO would supplement the regular JNA, giving it greater defensive depth and an armed local population ready to support combat actions. Large numbers of armed civilians would increase the cost of an invasion to a potential aggressor. The most likely scenario in the doctrine of ONO was a general war between the NATO and the Warsaw Pact. In such a situation, Yugoslavia would remain non-aligned, and it would not accept foreign troops of either alliance on its territory. The doctrine did recognize the likelihood that one side or the other might try to seize Yugoslav territory as a forward staging area, to ensure lines of communication, or simply to deny the territory to enemy forces. Such action would be considered aggression and would be resisted. Regardless of ideology, the occupiers would be considered Yugoslavia's enemy. == Territorial Defense Forces ==

Task and formation Under the constitution and laws of SFR Yugoslavia as the second part of armed forces, the Territorial Defense Forces were formed in 1969 as an integral part of the Yugoslav Total National Defense doctrine with the task of defending Yugoslav territory and supporting and working with JNA as one means of organized armed resistance through total war doctrine against aggressors. The main task of the Territorial Defense Forces was the protection of independence, sovereignty, territorial integrity and social organization of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. Description and formations They were mostly reserve forces to be used in case of war based on local population living among Yugoslav republics and municipalities. Each republic within Yugoslavia had HQ of Territorial Defense with active military personnel within HQ and most of units in reserve. They were kind of partisan forces organized to be active only during war and with limited armament compared to JNA's active structure. They were tasked with providing functioning of industries and local security and point defense specially in towns and important military installations during war while JNA provided strategic and operational forces to deal with the enemy. The TO concept focused on small, lightly armed infantry units fighting defensive actions on a familiar local terrain. • SR Serbia: 300,000 • SR Bosnia and Herzegovina: 200,000 • SR Croatia: 200,000 • SR Macedonia: 100,000 • SR Slovenia: 60,000 • SR Montenegro: 30,000 == Dissolution ==

The possibility that each Yugoslav federal unit could have its own armed formations led to concerns that someday these separate "armies" might oppose the federal Yugoslav JNA in an act of an eventual secession. Such concerns became reality during the breakup of Yugoslavia and the Yugoslav Wars when the TO forces in many of the constituent republics switched their allegiance and turned into separatist paramilitaries. Those former TO forces, along with Yugoslav army deserters and volunteers contributed to the founding of the respective armies of the independent states and other political entities that emerged after the disintegration of Yugoslavia. This includes the armies of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia and Slovenia. == See also ==