The security of critical infrastructure in the concept of the Territorial Defence Force of the Republic of Poland

Abstract

Nowadays, humanity has become dependent on the devices and systems which form part of everyday life. This relation was made clear by the terrorist attacks in New York, Madrid and London. The attacks resulted not only in human casualties and damage to infrastructure, but also made people aware of the close relations between the damage and the effective operation of the rescuers. This gave rise to the need to face the problem of protecting the infrastructure which is important for the security of the state and its citizens. At the same time, the issue of threats to critical infrastructure has started to emerge more and more in the literature devoted to internal security and stopped being associated solely with military concepts. In Poland, the notion of ‘critical infrastructure’ first started to appear in government documents and literature in 2007 after the introduction of the Crisis Management Act. The legislator specifies in the document the conceptual range of critical infrastructure which is closely related to the functioning of facilities, devices, and installations relevant for the security of the state and citizens. The following systems were regarded as critical infrastructures: the energy and fuel, communications and ICT, transport, rescue, financial, food and water supply, and healthcare systems, and also the one related to chemical and radioactive substances. This paper is an attempt at characterising the defence of critical infrastructure in Poland and the possibilities of preventing threats to important state security systems in the context of the establishment of the Territorial Defence Force.