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VikingCoder | 1 month ago

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.

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rayiner|1 month ago

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

adgjlsfhk1|1 month ago

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|1 month ago

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.