Militarism

Militarism or militarist ideology is the doctrinal view of a society as being best served (or more efficient) when it is governed or guided by concepts embodied in the culture, doctrine, system, or people of the military. Militarists hold the view that security is the highest social priority, and claim that the development and maintenance of the military ensures that security. Militarism connotes the drive to expand military culture and ideals to areas outside of the military structure —most notably in areas of private business, government policy, education, and entertainment.

Militarism is ideologically rooted in or related to concepts of alarmism, expansionism, extremism, imperialism, loyalism, nationalism, patriotism, protectionism, supremacy, triumphalism and warmongering. The concept of profiteering is central to militarization, as it denotes the private collusion between military and business to profit excessively from a state of war, in violation of the public good.

Overview

Under the justification of potential application of force, militarism asserts that civilian populations are dependent upon — and thereby subservient to —the needs and goals of its military. Common tenets include advocation of "peace through strength" as the proper method to secure the interests of society — and is expressed as one that overrides all others; including traditional precursory diplomatic relations and issues related to social welfare.

Militarism is sometimes contrasted with the concepts of comprehensive national power and soft power and hard power. This quality may be identified in economic terms by several methods; including the determination of those nations with large modern militaries requiring large or substantially higher budgets than the average among nations to maintain large military forces (as of 2005 viz United States, China, Japan) or to expand such forces (as of 2005 viz Israel, Kuwait, Singapore), or to nation-states devoting substantial portions of their GDPs per capita to develop such forces (as of 2005 viz. North Korea, Equatorial Guinea, Saudi Arabia).

Militarism is manifest in practice by the preferentiality toward goals, concepts, doctrines, and policies derived, originated, or directed from personnel in the military. It is likewise characterized by preferentiality toward persons officially or tangentially associated with causes, and regards loyalty to those narrow interests to be paramount. In a democratic republic, a central component of any state constitution are rules concerning how military rule (martial law, executive powers) may be implemented, and how such powers are to be returned to the elected government.

Historic and modern manifestations of militarism

Militarism tends to be considered as a direct opposition to self described peace movements in modern times. Today characteristics of militarism are observed by critics in several nations and groups of nations; viz. the loosely allied Anglo-Saxon powers (led by the United States and Australia), China, France, Israel, Syria, and the Russian Federation.

Militarism is most clearly observable in the history of nation-states and empires when they engaged in imperialism or expansionism; viz. Empire of Japan, British Empire, Nazi Germany, New Roman Empire of Mussolini, the expansion of the Russian SFSR into the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and later reign of Stalin, Iraq during the reign of Saddam Hussein, and the United States during the period of Manifest Destiny and army reform. An example of militarism in ancient history would be the Greek city state of Sparta.

German militarism

Militarism has been defined as "a policy which maintains huge standing armies for purposes of aggression." It should be noticed that themere fact that a nation, through universal conscription, maintains a large standing army in times of peace does not convict it of militarism. Every one of the great European powers except England maintained such an army, and yet Germany was the only one that we can say had a militaristic government.

A more narrow definition of militarism is that form of government in which the military power is in control, and with the slightest excuse can and does override the civil authority. This had been the situation in Germany for many years before the outbreak of the Great War.

Let us take a glance at the development of this sort of government. After Napoleon conquered Prussia, early in the nineteenth century, one of the conditions of peace was that Prussia should reduce her army to not more than forty-two thousand men. In order that the country should not again be so easily conquered, the king of Prussia enrolled the permitted number of men for one year, then dismissed that group, and enrolled another of the same size, and so on. Thus, in the course of ten years, it would be possible for him to gather an army of four hundred thousand men who had had at least one year of military training.

The officers of the army were drawn almost entirely from among the land-owning nobility. The result was that there was gradually built up a large class of military officers on the one hand, and, on the other, a much larger class, the rank and file of the army. These men had become used, in the army, to obeying implicitly all the commands of the officers.

This led to several results. Since the officer class furnished also most of the officials for the civil administration of the country, the interests of the army came to be considered the same as the interests of the country as a whole. A second result was that the governing class desired to continue a system which gave them so much power over the common people. We should perhaps consider as a third result the fact that the possession of such a splendid and efficient military machine tended to make its possessors arrogant and unyielding in their intercourse with other nations.

Japanese militarism

In parallel with 20th century Germany's militarism, Japanese militarism began with a series of events by which the military gained prominence in dictating Japan's affairs. With this dictatorial power, Japan invaded China in 1931 and overtook half of Chinese land within 11 years, and finally spread the Second World War to the Pacific by the Pearl Harbor Attack.

US militarism

In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries political and military leaders reformed the US federal government to establish a stronger central government than had ever previously existed for the purpose of enabling the nation to pursue an imperial policy in the Pacific and in the Caribbean and economic militarism to support the development of the new industrial economy. This reform was the result of a conflict between Neo-Hamiltonian Republicans and Jeffersonian-Jacksonian advocates over the proper administration of the state and direction of its foreign policy--between proponents of professionalism based on business management organizations and fuller local control by available figures-including amateurs. After the end of the American Civil War the national army fell into disrepair. Reforms based on various European states including Imperial Britain, Imperial Germany, and Switzerland were made so that it would become responsive to control from the central government, prepared for future conflicts, and develop refined command and support structures; it led to the development of a professional military. During this time the intellectual ideas of Social Darwinism propelled the development of an American Empire in the Pacific and Caribbean and necessitated extensive efficient central government due to its administration requirements.

The enlargement of the US army for the Spanish-American War was considered essential to the occupation and control of the new territories acquired from Spain in its defeat (Guam, the Philippines, Puerto Rico, and Cuba). The previous limit by legislation of 24 000 men was expanded to 60 000 regulars in the new army bill on 2 February 1901, with allowance at that time for expansion to 80 000 regulars by presidential discretion at times of national emergency.

Israeli militarism

Whether Israel is a militaristic state is debatable, especially since Israel's many security difficulties since the establishment of the State have led to a bending of its civil society into these security necessities. The prominence of security in politics has resulted in many of Israel's top politicians being former high ranking military officials (partial list: Yitzhak Rabin, Ariel Sharon, Ezer Weizman, Ehud Barak, Shaul Mofaz, Moshe Dayan, Yitzhak Mordechai, Amram Mitzna).

Militarism in fiction

Starship Troopers - Robert A. Heinlein
Forever War - Joe Haldeman
Barrayar in the Vorkosigan Saga by Lois McMaster Bujold

References

Bacevich, Andrew J. The New American Militarism. Oxford: University Press, 2005.
Barr, Ronald J. "The Progressive Army: US Army Command and Administration 1870-1914." St. Martin's Press, Inc. 1998. ISBN 0-312-21467-7.
Bond, Brian. War and Society in Europe, 1870-1970. McGill-Queen's University Press. 1985 ISBN 0773517634
Ensign, Tod. America's Military Today. The New Press. 2005. ISBN 1565848837.
Fink, Christina. Living Silence: Burma Under Military Rule. White Lotus Press. 2001. ISBN 1856499251.
Frevert, Ute. A Nation in Barracks: Modern Germany, Military Conscription and Civil Society. Berg, 2004. ISBN 1859738869
Huntington, Samuel P.. Soldier and the State: The Theory and Politics of Civil-Military Relations. Cambridge: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1981.
Ritter, Gerhard The Sword and the Scepter; the Problem of Militarism in Germany, translated from the German by Heinz Norden, Coral Gables, Fla., University of Miami Press 1969-73.
Shaw, Martin. Post-Military Society: Militarism, Demilitarization and War at the End of the Twentieth Century. Temple University Press, 1992.
Tang, C. Comprehensive Notes on World History Hong Kong, 2004
Vagts, Alfred. A History of Militarism. Meridian Books, 1959.
Western, Jon. Selling Intervention and War. Johns Hopkins University Press. 2005. ISBN 080188108.

External links

Political theories

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