As the human civilization is evolving, the institutions that were once very relevant and inevitable have been becoming archaic and irrelevant and alarmingly becoming deleterious if remain enacted and rigid. Standing mass armies is one of such institutions, which is losing its relevance that it once earned through conscription of human resource and extraction natural resources. With the emergence of democracy coupled with the dilution of borders by globalization, the armies have lost their stage and much eulogized roles as the defender, protector and invaders. The yardstick to measure the strength of any nation was their military’s might which has now been replaced with other well established indicators.
To shed light upon how and why the role of armies has been dwindled, we have to dive into the modern historical account of the events and reasons that once made the army inevitable and much desirable. As the raison d’etat for establishing the armies and galvanizing their influence was to acquire the large swaths of land and the quantifiable amount of people to propel the engine of their state machine. Resultantly, the expanded territories were in dire need to be regulated and protected with the iron fist rule, which could not be done without strengthening armies.
Now the hitherto said aspirations have become obsolete and less desirable due to changing dimensions of a society as a whole thereby the military too. To give credence to these assertions it is adequate to allude towards the decline in the tendency of ragging the territorial acquisition wars specifically in the post peace era. Now there is no incentive to acquire the large latifundia or the large amount of people to be slave them as farm workers or to conscript them into armies.
As per the report of the freedom house, there were scant sixty-nine electoral democracies in 1990; today there are more than one hundred and fifteen electrical democracies, which are more than sixty percent. In recently emerged democracies, resultantly, the transition from the centrally planned economies to the economic liberalization spawned the era of entrepreneurship and innovation. Now these budding democracies have recently embarked on the journey towards more opportunities and rising incomes that remained chimera twenty years ago. To bolster this claim, the human security report is enough as it claims that state-based arm conflict has ebbed by 40 percent and which is waning the propensity of countries to wage a full-scale war.
Furthermore, well-established democratic peace theory hits the last nail in the coffin of the aspirations to reinvigorate the military might. The increasing number of democracies are less likely to wage a war with another democratic country, which in result declines the chances of war.
As initially claimed, the ab initio reasons of having standing armies have squarely been replaced; it comes naturally in mind what have replaced them. In a complex and entangled world woven with the fabric of trade, ideas, and innovations, the war-philic countries are the least fit for survival in the Darwinian sense. The countries who are doing wonders in the spheres of economy ideas, innovations inter alia services are less prone to war and aggression.
Many but naming few as the innovation, ideas, trade, and entrepreneurial tendencies have substituted the reasons, which once made the armies relevant and inevitable. Sweden, Norway, UK at the top of global innovation index 2021 and the countries deprived of bloated, mighty, and behemoth militaries, which are also circumscribed in the limited territories, are at the peak of ideas, prosperity, and innovation as compared to those who are bestowed upon with unassailable armies.
Ostensibly, after taking into account the recent shift in the reason of having large standing armies, it is now necessary to discuss about the nature of the future warfare which poses the threats, but here too while dealing with them make everyone wary of the institution of armies and militaries which are too rigid to abreast with the current dynamic nature of warfare, resultantly, they have to bear the brunt of their rigidity everywhere.
Therefore, the Character of the future warfare is dramatically changing which incorporates the novel means to materialize the desired and often mischievous aspirations. In this regard, hybrid warfare is one emerging character, which includes a diverse variety of activities and instruments to destabilize the society, which surely would be desirable for its user. These instruments are like interfering in the electoral processes in which the adversaries can influence the outcome of the electoral processes in the direction, which benefit the adversaries’ political aspirations – Putin’s interference in Trump’s election campaign and Cambridge analytica.
Other instruments are disinformation and false news, Cyber-attacks, and financial influence. Which all of them have already been employing in different dimensions and scales. In this domain, Russia is employing all of these instruments with great dexterity. To better deal with such recent emerging means and tools, it has become a need of hour to introduce the more integrated and sophisticated ways to deal with hybrid warfare and to replace the rigid, archaic and obsolete militarily solutions. In doing so, fostering democracy, inclusion of civil society investment in media literacy are few but viable solutions.
Succinctly, the justifications for raising the large armies, which were to expand the territories, to slave the people or to protect the volatile boundaries, have recently been replaced or become obsolete and irrelevant. Therefore, this institution should be abreast its pace with the dynamic and changing character of the threats posing the great dangers. Moreover, the gauge to quantify the power of any country has resultantly been changed from the strength of armies to the innovation, ideas, entrepreneurial spirit, trade, and socio economic and socio political stability. Contemporarily, it has become futile to strengthen and increase the sizes of armies, which have already lost their relevance, conversely, the changing Character of warfare or better known as hybrid warfare, demands more.
