Why isn't demilitarization used as a defensive strategy?

Question

If a country was to disband any and all of its military, and sell off its military assets, wouldn't it be an effective way to prevent an invasion? Because after this, it's clear to anyone that this country is not a threat to anyone. No military action against it can be justified. Sure, a neighboring country that still has a military could walk over and occupy it with hardly any effort - but they would have no way to justify this as a "good" or "necessary" deed, not even to their own people or soldiers.

Of course this only works in a modern democratic setting. Historically, monarchs probably wouldn't worry about what the common rabble thinks of them. But today - why isn't this being done?

Answer 1

Dogbert has something to say about this.

http://www.lostrepublic.com/archives/15741

Imagine a situation where a country was concerned their neighbor would invade them. The kindly watching type (KWT) country looks at their irate and quarrelesome (IRQ) neighbor and rationally evaluates the situation as having a significant potential for the IRQ to attack the KWT.

Suppose IRQ believes they have some kind of grievance that can only be answered by war. Or pretends they do.

Now imagine that KWT make the change to having zero military, and nothing else is changed. Does this change their evaluation of IRQ? Does it change the evaluation that IRQ holds of KWT?

If they anticipate that they can simply drive their jeeps over there and sit down in the president's chair, probably not killing anybody, probably not firing a single weapon, will IRQ be dissuaded or encouraged? Will the rest of the world be outraged by such a non-violent annexation?

If all the KWT people can muster in response to the annexation is to put grumpy looks on their faces, does it make big media coverage in the countries that might do something about it? How does it compare to the news play if the KWT military fought fiercely but got brushed aside?

In other considerations, the military does lots of other things besides defending the border. They are symbolic indicators of power for the leadership. They can respond to natural disasters such as fire, flood, earthquake, with relief and crowd control and anti-looting efforts and such. They can be places to provide training to people for a wide array of useful skills. The military is a traditional place to stick unmanageable youth until they grow up a little. These are all things that governments traditionally find attractive.

Answer 2

Your basic assumption seems to be wrong, that countries are attacked because they're perceived to be threats. While this is sometimes the reason (e.g. the Iraq War was supposedly to prevent Saddam Hussein from making use of weapons of mass destruction -- although this is a gross simplification), it's not the only reason countries invade other countries.

Historically, the primary reason for invasions has been to acquire resources. For example, another country may have valuable oil reserves -- if you successfully attack them and take them over, now you have valuable oil reserves. Instead of having to purchase oil from them, you can sell it to others. And not just natural resources -- citizens and industries may be useful to acquire.

To be fair, this type of warfare has declined significantly in the modern era. It's generally more cost-effective to negotiate trade treaties rather than invading, and that's what most countries do. This is one of the points that Steven Pinker makes in his book The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined; most warfare these days is not international, it's civil wars, and based on ideological conflicts. However, there are some beligerant nations that are under sanctions that prevent them from trading as much as they might need; they may feel the need to acquire resources through violence since they can't do it peacefully (although the intent of the sanctions is for them to change their violent policies, then they'll be allowed to trade more freely).

As long as there are nations or state-like terrorist groups (e.g. ISIS) that use warfare as a means to achieve their goals, other nations will need military forces to defend against them. It's not reasonable for all peaceful countries to demilitarize -- they'll all become sitting ducks for the actors that are still willing to attack.

Answer 3

Let me tell you a story as an example of why demilitarization is not an effective strategy.

It's 1991. Ukraine had the third-largest nuclear arsenal in the world following the fall of the USSR. However, they have very little else going for them, and immediately begin to fall into economic decline. This concerned world leaders, because a failing country having nukes means someone might be desperate enough to actually use nukes.

Foreign leaders tried many times to get Ukraine to give up its nukes, but one failure after another occurred because Ukraine wanted to at least keep a few nukes for their own security, as they feared being re-absorbed by Russia. It took until 1994 and the Budapest Memorandum to finally get Ukraine to give up all their nukes in exchange for the USA, Russia, and the UK all providing joint security assurances against force or threat of force against Ukraine's territory or political independence. Ukraine became a non-nuclear state on December 5th, 1994.

In February of 2014, however, months of internal political unrest turned into the Ukrainian Revolution, and Ukrainian President Yanukovych fled the country to Russia to escape prosecution. Coincidentally, in March 2014, Russia invaded the southern tip of Ukraine, called Crimea, and annexed it as part of Russia soon afterwards. The US and UK decried this as violating their 1994 treaty, but Russia's response was that the treaty was with the lawful government of Ukraine, not with the forces that came to power after the coup d'etat.

While many legal bodies of the UN, EU, etc etc felt that this was a violation of the spirit of the treaty, no country was willing to go to war with the still-nuclear Russia to defend said treaty. So now 20% of Ukraine is Russian, with no assurances that the rest is safe.

Answer 4

The following countries have no military:

• Andorra
• Dominica
• Grenada
• Kiribati
• Liechtenstein
• Marshall Islands
• Federated States of Micronesia
• Nauru
• Palau
• Saint Lucia
• Saint Vincent and the Grenadines
• Samoa
• Solomon Islands
• Tuvalu
• Vatican City (Inclusion in this list is debatable. The Swiss Guard is under the authority of the Holy See, an entity which is much older than the Vatican City. But the Pope rules both, so they're not exactly independent.)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_without_armed_forces

Note that most of them do have agreements with nearby countries for protection. So maybe the answer is, that it can be a defensive strategy in this day and age if you have a strong and friendly neighbor.

Historically of course, this was a terrible idea. The Moriori people practiced strict non-violence. In the 1830's, they were invaded by the Taranaki Māori who nearly wiped them out, committing some pretty terrible atrocities above and beyond simple murder on the way.

Answer 5

This is an interesting question, but I think it's constructed on a few false premises.

If a country was to disband any and all of its military, and sell off it's military assets, wouldn't it be an effective way to prevent an invasion? Because after this, it's clear to anyone that this country is not a threat to anyone.

In the modern world, most democratic countries are not considered a threat to any others. No one worries about the US (3rd in the world, with 1,348,400 service members) invading Iceland (with no active duty military, just a Coast Guard).

No military action against it can be justified. Sure, a neighboring country that still has a military could walk over and occupy it with hardly any effort - but they would have no way to justify this as a "good" or "necessary" deed, not even to their own people or soldiers.

I don't see why the lack of resistance would matter at all to what Casus belli is used to justify a war or invasion. For example, if "rebels" in a country ask a neighboring country to come in and restore order, it doesn't matter whether that country has a military to protest it or not. Other countries and people will either believe the cause was justified or not, regardless of whether there was any fighting involved.

Answer 6

My observation is that invasions happen more often in relatively defenseless countries (compared to their aggressor) than well-guarded countries. In the entire course of the cold war and beyond, the United States never invaded Russia or vice versa. Despite the United States's adversarial relationship with China in recent decades, the U.S. government has been reluctant to enter into any military conflict with them. Invasion of nuclear powers is scarce. The U.S. invaded Iraq under the false pretense that they were developing nuclear weapons, but the U.S. government has never invaded a country that they knew had nuclear weapons. North Korea has had a nuclear weapons program since the 1980's and has been out of compliance with the UN Security Council since 1993, but the U.S. never bothered to invade and disarm them. Saudi Arabia is the most militarily strong country in the Middle East, and it is also an Arab country that the United States has shown little eagerness to invade, despite being the home country of most of the 9/11 hijackers; but the U.S. has conducted various campaigns in militarily weaker Arab countries like Iraq, Syria, and Afghanistan. In recent decades, Russia has invaded Ukraine, Georgia, and Chechnya; having little to do with whether they pose a military threat. Iraq invaded Kuwait despite Kuwait not being a match militarily.

It is rather rare in recent decades that invaded countries have been militarily mighty. There have been dozens of often not-well-known invasions perpetrated against militarily weak nations. Some notable exceptions have been the various invasions of India, the conflicts involving Israel, and the invasions involving Iraq. It can be conjectured that all of these classify as too much personal grudge to care about the defending nation's strength, or overwhelming military superiority of the invading country.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_invasions
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_military_expenditures

I believe a better defensive system would be to maintain a small to medium-sized military, operate a strong economy that is not weakened by excessive military spending, and maintain good diplomatic and military alliances. Switzerland's model of military neutrality and good diplomatic relations has helped it become the most economically and socially well-off country in the world (note: Switzerland DOES have a small military with a budget of about $4.8 billion). But the virtue in maintaining a small military, rather than no military, is it gives you more military capital with which to trade military alliances with other countries.

It can also be observed that in recent decades, there have rarely been invasions perpetrated against wealthy, industrialized, liberal democracies in the West. Specifically, in the 84 most recent invasions, the only a few have been directed against western democracies, only their distantly-held territories, not mainland invasions (Spanish and French territories in Morocco, British-controlled Falkland Islands, Dutch-controlled Papau New Guinea, Portuguese territories in India). This likely has to do with having neighbors who are also modernized liberal democracies. It can be reasoned that if a country provides humanitarian aid to help its neighbors to stabilize, establish a constitutional democracy, improve their education, and improve their economic health; then they can help stabilize their local geopolitical situation. Stable neighbors create an ally and eliminate a potential enemy at the same time.

Answer 7

During the Cold War, some German leftists suggested that the risk of accidental war on the Iron Curtain outweighs the risk of deliberate war, and that measures should be taken to prevent accidental war even at the expense of military efficiency.

The idea was to deploy non-mechanized infantry with plenty of anti-tank missiles forward near the border, and tank forces way back in the own territory. As long as the Soviets did not see those tanks moving forward, they could be assured that no major attack was imminent. Of course the best defense includes active counterattacks, so the infantry forces forward would sacrifice some of their efficiency. If it had come to a war, they would have paid dearly, but the judgement of those leftists was that the reduced risk of misunderstandings was worth it.

This is comparable to agreements on demilitarized zones as part of armstices or confidence-building measures, except that it would have been an unilateral decision.

Answer 8

This has been the strategy of the Netherlands in the first half of the 1900s. It worked to stay neutral in World War I.

However, in the Second World War, Adolf Hitler ordered the invasion of the Netherlands despite the proclaimed neutrality. The only defenses the Netherlands had were a century old, with hardly any air defense at all.

As a result, the main port Rotterdam was bombed to the ground and the country was overtaken in a single day.

See Netherlands in World War II on Wikipedia.

Answer 9

It depends on your neighborhood, your friends and your own internal politics.

Demilitarization as a strategy might very well work in say, Western Europe. Basically when no one nearby is likely to invade you. It will also work if you have powerful friends willing to step in and protect you. This will depend on who your friends are and how powerful your potential enemies are (face it, NATO's never going to fight Russia on Ukraine's behalf).

But a third element is also that your armed forces are internally a major potential political force (and one capable of resorting to violence should it wish to). Militaries are almost by nature conservative and could resist getting disbanded unless there is already a strong tradition of civilian oversight of the military.

Taking an extreme example. Pakistan might be well served to get rid of a military that sucks up 20-30% of their GDP, is incapable of winning a war with India (the main justification for its existence) and has a history of meddling in civilian affairs. India could probably be coerced into relatively benign behavior by international pressure, except in Kashmir. India aside, the Himalayas protect Pakistan and it would only really have to contend with Afghanistan and Iran (both of which have serious mountain ranges on the borders).

Would this ever fly? Of course not, the Pakistan military would never agree to being disbanded.

The general population may also resist the idea of disbanding the military, out of national pride. Again taking Pakistan, it is hard to see the population supporting military disbanding.

Some of the countries in South America are in a position where they could disband, but Costa Rica is one of the few to have done so. As a counter example of tradition-based militaries, Bolivia still maintains a navy, despite being landlocked and having little hope to regain sea access.

Answer 10

Because no one wants to fight someone else's war.

International diplomacy is inherently selfish. Parties uphold treaties only as long as those treaties benefit them, or real penalty for breaking treaty is worse than upholding it (penalty here, means potential retaliation from multiple parties who's interests might be threatened by breaking of treaty). Might does make right. Because of that, relying on undefined far off countries for protection is foolish. Unless they have vested interest in disarmed country's well-being or very existence, they have absolutely no reason to expend money, resources and lives fighting someone else's war.

This very excuse (someone else's war) has been used to cop out of assisting allies and members of mutual defensive pacts, using it to refuse entering alliance with demilitarised country in the first place is trivial.

Von Clausewitz said "War is the continuation of politics by other means", which indeed is correct. With mostly sane and reasonable leaders, war is little more than cost benefit analysis: deterring function of army relies on pushing cost of invasion high enough to make it unprofitable (in terms of financial capital, political capital or any other capital, profit in this case isn't purely monetary). Threat of invasion is used for political leverage. Disarmed country loses powerful deterrent without gaining anything, they gain no leverage over anyone. Indeed, anyone willing to actually defend them, instantly gains powerful leverage over them, mostly by threatening to withdraw protection offer.

You may note that another answer lists countries without militaries, note that those are basically microstates which could not offer any actual resistance in the first place. For example Lichtenstein neighbours Switzerland and Austria. Lichtenstein has population below 40 thousand, Austrian active military personnel counts 20 thousand, Swiss 160 thousand. Microstates can get away with no military on virtue of not being worth the fuss caused by invasion or offering important service for neighbouring political/financial elites (usually some form of tax haven), usually both. As such, anyone who might be in position to mandate invasion of microstate has vested interest in it's sovereignty. Large countries rarely can afford to offer service that vital to political/economic elites.

Answer 11

There are many useful answers already, but I think the analysis is not complete without addressing the military-industrial complex. Although not the only reason for its existence, pre-existing interest of the military and/or the arms industry may make it more difficult to reduce the size of either (with demilitarisation being the extreme case of reducing the size).

The theory of the power of the military-industrial complex is adhered to mostly by anti-war activists on the (far) left, even though the phrase was first coined by Eisenhower (emphasis mine):

Until the latest of our world conflicts, the United States had no armaments industry. American makers of plowshares could, with time and as required, make swords as well. But we can no longer risk emergency improvisation of national defense. We have been compelled to create a permanent armaments industry of vast proportions. Added to this, three and a half million men and women are directly engaged in the defense establishment. We annually spend on military security alone more than the net income of all United States corporations.

Now this conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence—economic, political, even spiritual—is felt in every city, every Statehouse, every office of the Federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet, we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources, and livelihood are all involved. So is the very structure of our society.

In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.

Peace activists argue that this unwarranted influence has already happened, and that lobbying by the military-industrial complex fuels wars and would never permit mutual demilitarisation. Politicians in democratic countries depend on campaign donations from their friends in the military-industrial complex to get re-elected. Politicians in autocratic nations depend on friends in the military to not get deposed in a coup-d'état. The complex is not limited to countries with a capitalist economy, but certainly also in countries with a planned economy (not many of those exist anymore). According to this analysis, demilitarisation is not used because the military-industrial complex would not permit it.

It would be in the interest of the people of neighbouring belligerent nations to both demilitarise. The arms race benefits the military industry, the arms industry, and people employed by it (labour unions are typically part of the military-industrial complex), but it does arguably not benefit the overall population, which would be better served if this money was used for peaceful purposes, within both countries.

Whether or not the analysis of the military-industrial complex is correct and is the reason why demilitarisation is not considered, is very much subject to debate. There are certainly objections that can be made to this theory. I wanted to put it here because I think it should at least be mentioned.

Answer 12

Consider the sizes of the Japanese and US military in 1940. The Japanese army had 376,000 active soldiers, while the US had 269,023. If you had looked just at the US military presence in Asia in 1940, there's no way Japan could have considered them a threat. Why did they attack? Because they expected a counter-attack when they engaged in a military take-over of Pacific resources. And why were they going to engage in a military take-over? Because the West was engaging in an embargo and refusing to voluntarily allow Japanese access. Now, if the West had not had any military presence in the Pacific at all, then perhaps Japan would not have engaged in any violence, but they still would have taken over any place they considered strategic for military or resource reasons. If the goal is to avoid bloodshed, immediate surrender is a reasonable strategy, but if the goal is to not be taken over by other countries, it's not such a good strategy.

Wars aren't won by the army countries have at the start of a war, they are won by the production capability during the war. The US had something like 10 times the GDP of Japan. If it weren't for making the European theater a priority, the US-Japan war would have been no contest. If the US had started with no military at all, they still would have been able to ramp up to massively outnumbering Japan within a few years. The only way the US could have not been a threat to Japan is if they had de-industrialized their economy.

Furthermore, your argument is based on what Nietzsche had "slave morality": not hurting others is the core of morality. But aggressors such as Imperial Japan and Nazi Germany were based on what Nietzsche called the "master morality": might makes right. For a nation to not protect itself is, in this view, a sign of weakness rather than morality. In a "survival of the fittest" ideology, it simply shows that the nation doesn't deserve to survive, and letting it survive is simply promoting weakness. When a strong nation takes over a weak one, they are take resources that are "wasted" coddling the weak and instead apply them to the "greatness" of the conquering nation.

Thus, aggressors are often not concerned about an invasion being "clearly unjustified"; at best, it can cause other parties side with the invaded, which means relying on there being more powerful country or multi-nation coalition willing to step in.