Inspired by this thread, which countries are the most likely candidates to have their militaries stepped down?
The one that comes instantly to mind is New Zealand. They’re an island state which is big enough to defend themselves against any potential invaders yet small enough to not be able to assert influence through the region via force. They have a larger neighbour to the west who they maintain excellent relations with (good natured ribbing about sheep aside) and they have a largely pacifist mindset.
I think the problem with that is that many countries are safe now, but they are safe because attacking them would be bad idea overall and not because nobody wants to do so.
New Zealand spends about 1% of its GDP on defence. That is not that much. If they eliminated their military the “cost” of attacking them would drop and sooner or later some enemy might indeed think it is a viable option. If it maintains an army even a small country can keep its price higher than its value for a potential invader.
Have no desire to participate militarily in the world.
Have no crucial resources needed by others
Switzerland might be best, or even NZ but S.E. Asia is not really the safest place to try this.
The problem is that there is no law enforcement or judicial system in the world to mediate disputes between countries. Countries are effectively on their own to protect themselves from encroachment.
How about the USA? It spends a considerable portion of its GDP and discretionary budget on “defense.” Consider the number $400 BILLION dollars. Of our money. Now also think of the actual ‘defense’ that is needed for the country. Not much at all. Terrorism is not stoppable with tanks or battleships (not that we should go there). I guess it would lead to an unfortunate decline in the number of countries we invade, however, and raw tonnage of munitions deployed upon marginally innocent people. Oh well.
Canada comes to mind immediately; if anyone was to violate Canadian territory/airspace, the US would definitely be worried about its own security and eliminate the threat.
Since the OP write in his title the word “should”…
The USA “should” first of all tone down its arrogance to military threaten other nations and invading and occupying them for its own economic and strategical purposes.
Salaam. A
One case in point: There are still nuclear ICBMs out there that are fully capable of reaching the United States. I don’t care to stand down nuclear deterrence forces if some dipshit in Russia or China is going to drop 1.4 megatons in my lap.
The War on Terrorism isn’t the only threat to this nation. Consider the drug interdiction the US Military does in cooperation with Federal agencies and other nations’ militaries. What about search and rescue on the high seas, or security of shipping lanes for that matter?
And we could sure as hell use some “defense” when hurricanes and other natural disasters hit the U.S. and abroad.
The military isn’t just about standing shoulder-to-shoulder and shooting at each other. I’d rather have it available at any given moment, than have to suffer without. . . Give 'em some credit.
Tripler
We need more defense than you think we need.
Sweden is cutting down about 30% of the military units, which is yet another reduction on an already quite big downscaling.
The idea to defend against an invasion was surrendered already and with the “Överbefälhavare” stating that “The cold war is over, there is no threat of an invasion… we need not a defensive but an interventionist military” it seems clear that the cutbacks on personell will continue. General conscription is pretty much over already and I’m predicting that it will be replaced by a small (3000 maybe) force trained mainly to partake in peace keeping missions.
Not a complete removal of military but pretty close.
The US doing anything simmilar seems more like a pipe dream, and even though I am often very harsh in my critisism of the US I can not fault them for it. I think that UK and France should get rid of their nukes though, that would set a good example for other nations.
There is another very good reason for any country to maintain a military - being able to project military force makes you a player in the game. You get a chance to influence world events in your favor. Look at Canada, for example. Back when Canada had quite a formidable military, we had a lot of say on the world stage. Canadian diplomacy had weight. Therefore, we managed to institutionalize some of our values on a larger stage. This has tremendous benefit in the long term.
Now that Canada’s military is but a shell of its former self, we are routinely ignored. Canada had no chance to influence the way the Iraq was was done, while Britain had significant impact on the proceedings. Tony Blair extracted numerous concessions from Bush, including attempting to go back to the U.N. for a second resolution. In return, Britain will be offered significant advantages in trade and power.
In any event, the notion that some countries don’t need militaries because they have no enemies is short-sighted in the extreme. In the last 100 years, we went through two world wars, Korea, and Vietnam, plus dozens of other smaller wars. We have had allies become enemies, become allies again, and then begin to once again turn the other way. And the pace of change in the world is not slowing down. Haiti is in revolution as we speak.
To assume that a period of relative calm or good relations between neighbors translates into a permenent end to conflict is naive. And it takes a long time to develop a military from scratch, so by the time you decide you need to build it, it may be too late.
You’re right. However, all these things are primarily tied to the military’s man power: You need a lot of helpers to build dams, look after wounded people and rebuild structures when you’re doing stress relief in a flood area. You don’t need some super high tech stealth bomber, laser guided bombs and missiles, and generally an assload of expensive high tech gizmos to blow other nations to kingdom come.
Imho, every nation’s military should be restructured, instead of simply downsized man-power wise, so that the basic functions of homeland defense, disaster relief and flashy parades aren’t compromised, but that the ability to invade other countries is significantly reduced.
If I am not mistaken Costa Rica doesn’t have military forces… only police forces. They haven’t been invaded yet.
Overall everyone would benefit from reducing military expenditure… but certain big countries have been putting pressure on other to spend more in order to compete in world influence.
New Zealand’s army participated in the Lord of the Rings Movie… so their existence has already been justified
But the budget remains the same, about 4-5M$
So instead of 40 infantry brigades consisting of 300,000 – 400,000 riflemen, we will have 6 top modern mechanized brigades along with a couple of airborne battalions. Same with Navy and Air Force; no destroyers but smaller corvettes with equal firepower and 120 fairly modern fighters instead of 400 obsolete ones.
So long as countries need police to tackle human nature on the inside of their borders, the existence of that same human nature should compell them towards having a military for those outside their border. While a fan of peace myself, I think it is extremely shortsighted for a country to not have a capable military at the ready. Thinking that neighbors will stand a vigilant guard is dangerously stupid. Governments do not make good friends.
