[VikingCoder]

If I'm not mistaken, there was not supposed to be a standing army.

If you have a standing army, that creates a whole rats nest of problems.

And ps, I've talked to people who think we shouldn't have a standing army, and I frankly think they're insane.

[rayiner]

Standing armies create structural problems. Many countries in Asia are constantly having civilian governments being overthrown by the army.

[adgjlsfhk1]

Not having standing armies also creates structural problems (mostly getting invaded). There are only 21 countries without a standing army, and they're almost all micronations with <200k population (mostly tiny islands). Iceland is the only one of them with a GDP per capita worth mentioning, but it's also part of Nato, the largest military alliance in the world.

[impossiblefork]

This is why we originally instituted mandatory military service here in Sweden. To ensure that the army isn't representative of some special class, e.g. the nobility or the burghers etc.