I'm not quite sure when I realised this, but it has dawned on me that a lot of people do not understand why militaries exist. Perhaps this is part of what happens when you stop teaching civics in school, or the increasing alienation of the post-industrial world from the military sphere. In Canada, at least, I feel part of the story is being in America's cultural shadow. American culture, I think, sees the military as an essential part of its self-identity. While any debate might circle around its use and its size, the existence of a military is taken as granted. This uncritical acceptance means that most Canadians don't really have a jumping off point for discussing why Canada – or any nation – needs a military. So, I thought I'd write a basic explainer as to 'why a military.' While as a Canadian I'm going to be often using Canada as an example, I think the basic framework I'm going to lay out here will work for any nation, since the basic rationales for a military are founded on what a nation is.
The first reason sovereign nations have militaries is right there in the name: they are sovereign. In modern international law, the concept simply means that the nation in question is the uncontested authority over its territory, and is independent, IE, not subordinate to another government. Having a military is both a demonstration of sovereignty and a mechanism to remain sovereign. While non-sovereign military and paramilitary forces exist, a sovereign military force is a bit different, in that it is part of the state itself, and acts as the state’s military in the international arena as a force to act coercively, and more importantly, a force to resist the coercion of others. The military, thus, is used to resist the violence of others, be they external to the nation or internal to it, and also as a mechanism of last resort for when other structures of society (such as social or legal structures) break down. Thus the military acts as a fail-safe to other forms of government power, and the state itself. This makes the military 1) a sign of a sovereign nation, and 2) an indemnification against risks not focused on by other parts of government or society.
Speaking of indemnification, the military as insurance is a useful metaphor. Insurance is something that you get hoping it is not needed – the fact you never needed to contact your insurance provider about your last car is no argument that buying insurance was a waste of money. Insurance also recognizes that the world is an uncertain place, where outcomes cannot be foreseen with certainty. This of course is trivial when talking about insurance, but it is surprising just how many critics of the military fail to grasp this. (We will return to this anon.)
A third reason nations have a military is simply that hard power (the power to influence via coercion) has value. Hard power by diplomacy's definition is the use of force; things like diplomacy, trade relations, and the exchange of ideas are 'soft' power, IE the use of coercion rather than force. This can mean the ability to attack others, but also to defend against the hard power of other nations. A simple example here is the Ukrainian war; with a military already there to resist Russia's invasion, Ukraine would have been conquered by Russia's first assaults. Hard power is also at root to the whole concept of deterrence, where aggression is checked before it starts by the power of the opponent to return harm on the aggressor. Hard power also underlies why defensive pacts exist – nations band together to resist the hard power of larger aggressors.
If the third reason starts simply but then gets complected, the fourth reason starts complicated and gets more complicated. Nations have militaries to pursue foreign policy goals. While historically this has often boiled down to “the ability to attack that guy” or “the ability to defend against that guy”, this is not always true. Canada has foreign policy goals that involve military power: for example, continuing to assert control over its staked claim to its part of the Arctic. The Arctic has the potential with climate change to be a new, changing frontier, one that has attracted a fair bit of notice from other nations, such as Russia, China, the USA, as well as several European nations, plus Japan. There's also the small matter that when Canada was created, the legal documents doing so only describe Canada to its Arctic Ocean shoreline; the islands beyond were not specified, which creates the awful fear (to Canada) that somebody else could lay claim to them. The military, along with broader National Security initiatives such as SAR services and policing are arguments that the islands (and the economic zones surrounding them) are in fact Canada's. Canada recently filed claims of an expanded exclusive economic zone (EEZ) stretching to the geographic north pole, meaning things like fish, oil, and mineral rights in these waters are exclusively Canada's, and part of what defines an EEZ is the ability to monitor and police that space.
There's also something that is on the border between hard and soft power as far as the military is concerned: the capabilities of the military can be sometimes used in soft power ways. For example, Amphibious warfare ships are often ideal for disaster relief, being designed as staging areas for the movement of vehicles, logistics, and medical support. It is for this reason that both Spain and Italy’s navy have amphibious warfare ships; they seek to have influence on the Mediterranean, and such ships are very versatile. Similarly, heavy lift air transport (IE large transport aircraft such as the An-124, Il-76, C-130, and C-17) can have a wide variety of potential uses in an emergency. Less capital intensive examples of the squishy hard/soft border include the ability to participate in peacekeeping operations, and the simple ability to give military equipment to those that need it.
It is these four basic reasons that militaries among nations are universal.
Now some would object at this point. Rather than respond to all critics (which would likely be impossible and without a doubt tedious) let me keep in the style I set out in and keep the objections limited and general. Many people who I'm going to describe as “military dislikers” have some political ideology or another that I'm just going to describe as Utopian, IE a group of people who believe the real world can in the future become a perfect society of some description. With them, I disagree, but it goes considerably beyond “militaries are in fact necessary and good.” Anybody with a Utopian worldview, IE one who believes in a perfect form of society, is going to be endlessly baffled by the existence of something that is kept around in case something breaks or fails. In contrast (as anybody who deals with people or things on a more hands-on level could tell the Utopian) machines and systems that work in the real world are never built to be perfect; they are built to fail safely. In other words, things are done in reality by building with what you have, rather than what you would like, and the results inevitably will have flaws. It's only by accepting this can something durable be created.1
The second group of military dislikers I'd characterise as people who, when it comes to the military, anyway, believe that because the old car didn't ever use its insurance, it was a waste of money to get the insurance. To rephrase, they conclude that because CF-18s never once had to scramble to intercept Backfire bombers attacking Edmonton, therefore Canada does not need fighter jets. The whole insurance metaphor I think says most of what is needed, though I will point out that many people who object to big capital purchases by the Canadian military (and are strangely silent on the Canadian Military paying poverty wages among other issues) display a certainty as to what the future will bring that is not confidence inspiring in the current age. The idea that Finland and Sweden would join NATO would have been seen by me in 2020 as incredibly unlikely, just like Russia declaring war on Ukraine and attempting to annex it with force – and yet, here we are.1
The military disliker looking for concrete examples might cite Iceland and Costa Rica not having militaries as at least examples of its possibility, if not some implicit or explicit reason why Canada shouldn't have one, either. And fair enough; it is true both nations don't have militaries. It's only when you start looking at the details of both nations that it becomes less convincing.
Iceland became a sovereign nation independent of Denmark only after the latter was occupied by Nazi Germany. It was then, shall we say, friendly invaded by Britain, and then later occupied by the United States during World War 2 to prevent a less-than-friendly invasion by the Nazis. Today, it is true, Iceland lacks a formal military, but does have a coast guard that enforces Icelandic sovereignty in its territorial waters, one that is notable in that it won several battles with the British Navy during the Cold War.1 What’s more, Iceland is a member of NATO, and thus if attacked will be defended by the entire NATO alliance. So Iceland has on-call quite significant military forces, if it was needed. One more fact that is relevant: the nation of Iceland has about the same population as Saskatoon, Saskatchewan.
This is the fine print not known to the typical Iceland citer: that every sovereign state not possessing a military has an agreement with somebody who does, who will show up if invited. Costa Rica is similarly disappointing to those inclined to do a little digging. It possesses no formal armed forces, it is true, stemming from the military having a long history of being a destabilizing, tyrannical element in Costa Rican history. But, in its national police force, it possesses elements that can be described as paramilitary; serving the function if not officially military.
So we're getting somewhere, now. With these four basic reasons we understand why militaries exist, and can understand why they are subdivided into army, navy, and air force, as land, sea, and air are the domains that nations seek to assert sovereignty over. The question of ‘why a military’ has been answered; the question then you have to ask is "how much military is needed to accomplish our four goals?”
This question has no definitive answer. First because the answer is contextual; not only about the nations involved, but also the resources of the nations, the various goals and challenges it faces, what resources its possible enemies possess, what a nation’s foreign policy goals are, etc. You also have to factor in that ultimately people are behind these decisions, and their decisions affect other nations. Kaiser Wilhelm’s decision to enter into a naval arms race with the UK was done for our four reasons, but was undoubtedly a disaster for Germany. Putin who after firing a reform-minded defence minister became about maximal defence to preserve Russia against its ‘enemies’, but this too was a disaster, and one ironically that did a lot to undermine Russia’s military. In the Cold War, the UK was determined to develop all its own warplanes at a time when it was cash strapped, and this decision was mostly a feckless waste of resources, especially when the Second World War had demonstrated the UK lacked the resources to develop effective aircraft for every last warplane niche it possessed, at a time when aircraft development was quicker and cheaper. Speaking of, the Maginot line of fortifications that France constructed pre Second World War failed, not because they were poorly made, but because they did not cover the entirety of France’s eastern border, among other reasons. This is a field where failures abound, and sometimes are enormously significant.
In order to navigate this uncertainty, we return to our insurance analogy, and militaries hedge their bets. In addition to this, it’s worth mentioning nations are restricted by finite resources. Even the US Military, gigantic as it is, must choose how to invest smartly, and for the rest of the world, the aircraft of one Nimitz class supercarrier would be an entire air force.
With this real world restriction, all militaries focus on core competencies in their respective fields, occasionally branching out into specialisations when circumstances dictate. This is by the principle of insurance (since the precise nature and timing of future conflicts is unknown). This also gives you a base of personnel and expertise to build off of when something unforeseen happens. The personnel of your military are your most valuable asset, as without them, the big capital purchases are so much scale modelling fodder. Military Personal also act as a cadre; IE a group of people who can serve as the nucleus of a much larger force, should major war threaten. Using the standing armed forces as a cadre is standard in modern industrialised nations. This means that the Army, Navy, and Air Force must train in modern methods of warfare (such as anti-submarine warfare, air defence, armoured brigades etc) both to limit the risk of the unknown future, and to function as effective cadres in an emergency.
While we're on an economic vibe, under-spending on the military has negative effects. Canada is a excellent example here: if you under-spend on defence, it means you will be likely frustrated in meeting some or all of your foreign policy goals, your defensive alliance partners will be cross with you and may consider dropping you from the alliance, and other nations will start damaging your sovereignty for their own benefit. It is also bad in that competence (in military and national security matters) requires a lot of effort to get and to maintain, and under-spending likely means you are losing at least some of it. While big capital items, like tanks, helicopters, and submarines attract most of the attention in the modern media, in truth this spending is, to repeat myself, secondary to the people who make up the military.
Despite the problems of underspending, I judge overspending on the military as the worse mistake, if only because the underspending nation (presumably) has money saved that can be used to change direction; for a nation that has over-spent, it is not that easy. Unnecessary infrastructure is a waste twice: first in the construction of it, and second in the cost of its maintenance. What's more, aside from not spending money in more fruitful areas, an overspent military may find their diplomacy distorted as other nations view them with increased suspicion. More armament does not always translate into an advantage.
Beyond that, overspending can damage the economy, and the military, in other ways. The USSR was previously a gold standard for what happens when you spend too much on defence, but Russia has become its worthy successor. While navigating the rust out, brain drain, and a step down in military size is anything but easy, Russia (in its navy, for example) attempted to hang onto so many now irreplaceable Soviet vessels that in the end it got the worst of both worlds; they are considerably behind in replacement construction, and most of the Soviet era ships are of dubious value. The Destroyers that can accompany capital ships long distances are all 35-40 years old, with 1980s era Soviet equipment. And that's assuming the destroyers are fully functional. The Slava-class cruiser Moskva was sunk in May 2022 in the Black Sea, and after it was revealed that the ship had only half her complement, and the Harpoon missiles launched by Ukraine were not intercepted by any of the ship's defences, because none of these defences were working. Navy ships that are the boat equivalent of Potemkin's villages are what you get when you try to have a military capacity beyond your ability to support. This pattern is all over the Russian military, even setting aside corruption: the attempt to hang onto existing assets poisoned attempts at rationalization and the development of new equipment, to the point that rust out and corruption have erased whole industries.
So there you have it: the underpinning of militaries with modern nations. If a nation values itself, it will care about these issues. Most do; I don't know why Canada and Germany are such outliers, but I hope this essay helps a bit.
1 Not only military dislikers are Utopians. Both Robert S. MacNamera and Donald Rumsfeld as Defence Secretaries for the United States saw war itself as something that could be rationalised and perfected using period MBA style management. MacNamera as SecDef attempted to run the Vietnam War via these methods, and the result was a disaster. MacNamera viewed war as akin to a manufacturing process rather than as insurance, one that would 'produce victory' as a product once the 'correct' amount of efficient force was used.. Donald Rumsfeld was an Utopian as well. He sought to use the magic of an unregulated free market to write a new chapter in war. Using 'just in time' inventory methods, Rumsfeld sought to both make war radically cheaper to pave the way for 21st century American imperialism, and to use the free market instead of policy and resources to reform nations into what America saw as ideal: neoliberal democracy friendly to the US. The result of the experiment was a trillion-dollar war in Iraq that did nothing to strengthen America, and who's abject failure discredited the whole neoconservative intellectual movement. In both cases, Utopian vision leads to disaster.
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1 The Ukraine war is a sterling example of the unpredictability of future events, since those that follow foreign policy often assume rational actors seeking rational outcomes, and open war and annexation was judged to be the least rational thing Russia could want in the given scenario. ↩
