Doctrine of “Total defence” in Polish military thought: from sikorski to wojska obrony terytorialnej (1934–2024)

The doctrine of total defence — understood as the integration of military, civilian, economic, and informational components into a unified national defence effort — has expe- rienced a significant revival in Polish military thought after 2014, culminating in the formal establishment of the Wojska Obrony Terytorialnej (Territorial Defence Forces) in 2016/2017. This review study traces the genealogy of the Polish total-defence idea from its inter-war foundations in the work of Władysław Sikorski (Przyszła wojna, 1934) through the Cold War and post-1989 transition to its contemporary institutional form, and situates it within the broader Nordic-Baltic comparative context. The methodological approach com- bines a systematic review of post-2017 SCOPUS-indexed literature on Polish defence policy, strategic culture, and total-defence doctrine with primary-source analysis of Polish strategic documents and Sikorski's foundational work. Results show three distinct phases of the Polish total-defence idea: (1) the inter-war strategic synthesis that integrated mass mobilisation with mechanised warfare; (2) the marginalisation of the concept under the Warsaw Pact system; and (3) the post-2014 revival driven by Russian hybrid threats, culminating in the WOT as a structural institutionalisation of the idea. The original contribution of this article consists in the longitudinal mapping of conceptual continuities and discontinuities between Sikorski's 1934 framework and the contemporary WOT model, situated within the Nordic-Baltic total- defence revival. The study suggests that the Polish case represents a hybrid model in which Sikorski-era doctrinal heritage interacts with Nordic-style comprehensive defence and con- temporary hybrid-threat response, with implications for NATO's eastern flank deterrence architecture after 2022.