Let's Have An Army of the People!

I've already laid out my basic views on national defense in the first post of this new blog. My basic position is to favor a military system similar to Switzerland's, which is based upon an armed citizens' militia.

This has been a topic I've been meaning to address to some length for a long time. I've already commented on many military issues in several other posts on this blog. This article provides good information about how the Swiss military operates. A very good book to read on the history of the Swiss military(especially in the modern era) is Stephen P. Halbrook's Target Switzerland: Swiss Armed Neutrality in World War II.

So the big question that people will ask is why an armed citizenry? Well the most important reason for an armed citizenry is that it's a good guarantee of deterring foreign invaders. Who on earth would want to invade a country if they knew they would have to face literally a "nation in arms"? There would be an endless list of difficulties for any such invader facing such a force: mounting casualties(with the possibility of waging a lengthy and costly war of attrition), constant harassment from local bands of riflemen, ambushes, etc.

It would just be one hell of a mess. And it is this very possibility that has deterred many would-be aggressors from invading Switzerland. And the fact that Switzerland has a long history of having one of the finest military forces in the world (think it's just a coincidence that the Popes relied on Swiss guards for protection?) only added to that deterrent.

Not only as a deterrent to potential tyranny coming from abroad, it's often argued that an armed citizenry will also deter potential domestic tyrants. If a government tries to oppress a citizenry that is heavily armed, they run the risk of sparking many potential armed insurrections.

Then there is the also the obvious argument that an armed citizenry could potentially help reduce crime. Pretty hard to commit a crime when you face the great possibility that your victim is heavily armed. This may also explain why Switzerland has one of the lowest crime rates in the world. Let's face the facts, most citizens who own firearms are law-abiding. Why punish them as criminals?

Another important aspect of having this form of military is the fostering of a strong sense of civic duty. This was the main reasoning behind Niccolo Machiavelli's advocacy of an armed citizenry in his 1521 treatise the Art of War (not to be confused with Sun Tzu's text).

According to Machiavelli, a citizen willing to give up his most sacred duty to a mercenary (which you could correctly characterise most professional soldiers as) is a also a citizen willing to give up his basic liberties, since he clearly doesn't value them enough to be willing to defend them.

Contrary to popular myth, it's perfectly legitimate for Catholic citizens to bear arms to defend themselves, their families, and/or especially their nation. Armed citizen militias were quite common throughout Medieval Europe. Most famous example of such Medieval militias (at least in the English-speaking world) was the Anglo-Saxon Fyrd. The ideal of the patriotic citizen soldier was also commonplace during the renaissance (most famous proponent of such being Machiavelli). So a clear connection between Catholicism and the idea of citizen soldiers can be made. In fact, Francis X. Maier of Crisis Magazine recently wrote out a Catholic case for conscription.

The moral case for citizen soldiers can be well laid out. The question becomes, how do citizen-soldiers compare to professional soldiers on the battlefield? Many defenders of a professional military insist that citizen-soldiers are just not that of the same quality as professionals.

For example, Thomas Donnelly of the American Enterprise Institute (cited in Maier's article) contends that "[c]ombat in places like Iraq and Afghanistan is 'real soldiering' that requires well-trained, disciplined, motivated, professional troops."

How on earth professional soldiers are better trained, disciplined, motivated, than conscripts is really in the eye of the beholder. The Swiss and Israeli militaries are considered some of the best quality militaries in the world, and yet they both rely on citizen-soldiers. Some have argued that these are the unique situations because conscription is a matter of "national survival" or "national identity". Nevermind that's the entire point behind any kind of military force.

Some also charge that citizen-soldiers are ill-suited for combat in places like Iraq and Afghanistan. Of course that assumes that the United States should be fighting wars 5,000 miles away against countries that pose little or no threat to us. Yes, professional armies are certainly better at fighting all sorts of little (pointless) wars half-way across the world. The example of the British Empire certainly proves that. However that begs the question of whether or not fighting all sorts of little (pointless) wars half way around the world is really in a nation's interests. In the long run, it has shown it is not really worth it!

Indeed, as Andrew J. Bacevich argues in his recent book The New American Militarism: How Americans Are Seduced by War, a revival of the dormant concept of the citizen soldier would help in curbing America's endless military involvements overseas. The fact that civic duty and military service have become so distant from the everyday lives of average citizens has given politicians free reign to send our fighting boys off to some far distant corner of the globe without fearing much repercussions on the home front. Not to mention many of these politicians and warmongers never even served in the military themselves.

Hopefully I have been able to lay out at least a basic and concise case for an armed citizenry as the basis for a nation's defense. For a more detailed case for a citizens' army, I highly recommend Gary Hart's The Minuteman, Restoring an Army of the People.