Militarism: Exploring the Evolution and Impact of Armed Forces

By Fouad Sabry

What is Militarism

Militarism is the belief or the desire of a government or a people that a state should maintain a strong military capability and to use it aggressively to expand national interests and/or values. It may also imply the glorification of the military and of the ideals of a professional military class and the "predominance of the armed forces in the administration or policy of the state". In addition, such ideologies operate on individuals as "militarism represents a disciplinary means to organise individualised bodies, supervise, hierarchise, classify, rank, distribute, and pedagogically train them."

How you will benefit

(I) Insights, and validations about the following topics:

Chapter 1: Militarism

Chapter 2: German Empire

Chapter 3: Client state

Chapter 4: Yamagata Aritomo

Chapter 5: Empire of Japan

Chapter 6: Sadao Araki

Chapter 7: Imperial Japanese Army

Chapter 8: Causes of World War II

Chapter 9: History of Russia (1894-1917)

Chapter 10: Japanese nationalism

(II) Answering the public top questions about militarism.

Who this book is for

Professionals, undergraduate and graduate students, enthusiasts, hobbyists, and those who want to go beyond basic knowledge or information for any kind of Militarism.

• Language: English
• Publisher: One Billion Knowledgeable
• Release date: Jun 3, 2024

Book preview

Chapter 1: Militarism

Militarism is the desire of a state or people to have a strong military and aggressively employ it to promote their national interests and ideals. (also see stratocracy and junta).

Throughout history, militarism has been an integral component of the imperialist or expansionist ideology of numerous states. The Assyrian Empire, the Greek city-state of Sparta, the Roman Empire, the Aztec country, and the Mongol Empire are significant instances of ancient empires. Modern examples include the Ottoman Empire, Kingdom of Prussia/German Empire/Third Reich, British Empire, Russian Empire and Soviet Union, Habsburg monarchy, United States of America, First French Empire, Zulu Kingdom, Empire of Japan, Italian Empire under Mussolini, and North Korea.

The origins of German militarism can be traced to Prussia in the 18th and 19th centuries, as well as the unification of Germany under Prussian authority. Hans Rosenberg, on the other hand, traces its origins to the Teutonic Order and its colonization of Prussia in the late Middle Ages, when mercenaries from the Holy Roman Empire were granted lands by the Order and gradually formed a new landed militarist Prussian nobility, from which the Junker nobility would later emerge.

After Napoleon Bonaparte defeated Prussia in 1806, one of the terms of peace was that Prussia's army must be reduced to no more than 42,000 soldiers. In order to prevent a similar defeat, the King of Prussia registered the maximum number of soldiers for one year, trained and then discharged them, and enrolled another group of the same size, etc. Consequently, he was able to amass a 420,000-man army with at least one year of military training in ten years. The vast majority of army officers were selected from the land-owning nobles. As a result, a huge class of professional officers and a far bigger class, the rank and file of the army, were progressively formed. These enlisted soldiers had been conditioned to obey the commanders' orders without question, creating a class-based culture of respect.

This system had numerous repercussions. Since the officer class also provided the majority of officials for the country's civil administration, the army's interests became synonymous with those of the nation as a whole. A second consequence was that the ruling elite wished to maintain a system that provided them so much control over the common people, which contributed to the Junker noble classes' continued influence.

After World War I and the overthrow of the German monarchy in the German Revolution of 1918–1919, militarism persisted in Germany, Despite Allies' efforts to defeat German militarism under the Treaty of Versailles, German militarism persisted, As the Allies viewed Prussian and German militarism as one of the primary causes of the First World War, they aided in its funding.

During the years of the Weimar Republic (1918–1933), Germany was a democracy, in 1920, the Kapp Putsch, an attempted coup d'état against the republican government, was initiated by disgruntled military personnel.

After this occurred, Some of the most ardent militarists and nationalists joined Adolf Hitler's NSDAP party out of sadness and despair, While more moderate aspects of militarism receded and stayed linked with the German National People's Party (DNVP), the DNVP remained affiliated with the Nazi Party.

The Weimar Republic remained threatened by militant nationalism during its entire 14-year existence, as many Germans felt the Treaty of Versailles degraded their militaristic culture. Large-scale right-wing militarist and paramilitary mass organizations such as Der Stahlhelm and illegal underground militias such as the Freikorps and the Black Reichswehr existed during the Weimar period. From the latter two, the Sturmabteilung (SA), the paramilitary wing of the Nazi party, quickly emerged in 1920. All of these factors contributed to the political violence of the so-called Feme killings and the lingering civil war atmosphere of the Weimar era. During the Weimar period, the mathematician and political writer Emil Julius Gumbel produced in-depth assessments of the militarist paramilitary violence that characterized German public life and the state's lenient to sympathetic response to it if the violence was committed by the political right.

After its defeat in 1945, militarism in German culture was drastically reduced as a backlash against the Nazi era, and the Allied Control Council and later the Allied High Commission oversaw a program of attempted fundamental re-education of the German people at large to put an end to German militarism for good.

The Federal Republic of Germany maintains a large, sophisticated military and has one of the world's highest defence budgets; at 1.3 percent of Germany's GDP in 2019, it is comparable in monetary terms to those of the United Kingdom, France, and Japan, at approximately US$50bn.

The growth of militarism in India may be traced back to the British Raj, when many Indian independence movement groups, including the Indian National Army led by Subhas Chandra Bose, were founded. The Indian National Army (INA) was instrumental in pushing the British Raj after it conquered the Andaman and Nicobar Islands with the aid of Imperial Japan. However, the movement lost steam due to the Indian National Congress's lack of support, the Battle of Imphal, and Bose's untimely death.

After India's independence in 1947, tensions with Pakistan over the Kashmir conflict and other matters prompted the Indian government to prioritise military preparation (see also the political integration of India). After the Sino-Indian War of 1962, India rapidly increased its military strength, which aided its victory in the Indo-Pakistani War of 1971.

Yitzhak Rabin, Ariel Sharon, Ezer Weizman, Ehud Barak, Shaul Mofaz, Moshe Dayan, Yitzhak Mordechai, Amram Mitznai, and Benny Gantz are just some of Israel's former high-ranking military leaders who have become prominent politicians as a result of Israel's numerous Arab–Israeli conflicts since the Declaration of the Establishment of the State.

In line with the German militarism of the 20th century, Japanese militarism began with a series of events that elevated the military's influence over Japan's affairs.

This was visible throughout the Sengoku period or Age of Warring States in 15th-century Japan, where powerful samurai warlords (daimyōs) played a significant role in Japanese politics.

Japan's militarism is strongly ingrained in the samurai culture of the past, millennia before the modernization of Japan.

Despite the fact that a militaristic ideology was inherent to the shogunates, After the Meiji Restoration, a nationalist form of militarism emerged, which restored the Emperor to power and established the Japanese Empire.

The 1882 Imperial Rescript to Soldiers and Sailors exemplifies this, It demanded total personal loyalty from all members of the military to the Emperor.

the twentieth century (approximately in the 1920s), Two reasons contributed to both the military's strength and its internal disorder.

One was the Active-Duty Officers for Military Ministers Act., This needed the Imperial Japanese Army (IJA) and Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) to agree with the Ministry of Army's Cabinet position.

This effectively handed the military veto authority over Cabinet formation in the nominally democratic nation.

Another factor was gekokujō, or systemic disobedience among junior officers.

It was typical for radical junior officers to pursue their objectives, to the point of murdering their elders.

In 1936, This occurrence led to the February 26 Incident, in which junior officers attempted a coup d'état and killed leading members of the Japanese government.

Emperor Hirohito was incensed by the uprising and ordered its suppression, This was effectively executed by devoted military personnel.

In the 1930s, the Great Depression destroyed Japan's economy and provided extreme sections of the Japanese military with the opportunity to accomplish their goals of conquering all of Asia. The Kwantung Army (a Japanese military unit stationed in Manchuria) orchestrated the Mukden Incident in 1931, which led to the invasion of Manchuria and the transformation of the region into the Japanese puppet state of Manchukuo. The Marco Polo Bridge Incident west of Beijing prompted the Second Sino-Japanese War (1937–1945) six years later. Japanese troops poured into China, capturing Peking, Shanghai, and the national capital of Nanking; the Nanking Massacre followed the final triumph. In 1940, Japan allied with Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy, two highly aggressive European nations, and expanded from China into Southeast Asia. This prompted the United States to intervene by imposing a fuel embargo on Japan. The embargo ultimately led to the attack on Pearl Harbor and the United States' admission into World War II.

Japan's surrender to the United States in 1945 marked the beginning of the Occupation of Japan and the elimination of all militarist tendencies in Japanese culture and politics. In 1947, the new Constitution of Japan replaced the Meiji Constitution as the country's fundamental law, replacing imperial power with parliamentary rule. This event marked the end of the Japanese Empire and the establishment of the current State of Japan.

Sŏn'gun (often transliterated songun), The Military First strategy of North Korea, sees military strength as the country's first priority.

This has grown to such a degree in the DPRK that one in five citizens serve in the military, The military has become one of the world's largest institutions.

Songun raises the Korean People's Armed Forces as an organization and a state function within North Korea, offering it the preeminent place within the North Korean government and society. The idea governs both domestic and international policy and interactions. It establishes the military as the ultimate source of authority and provides the structure for the administration. It also enables the militarization of non-military sectors by highlighting the unity of the military and the public through the dissemination of military culture among the populace. Since Kim Il Sung's death in 1994, Songun has also influenced a shift in policy that prioritizes the people's military over all other components of the state and places the military's interests above those of the populace (workers).

In pre-colonial times, the Filipinos had their own armies, which were separated among the islands, each of which had its own monarch. They were known as the Sandig, the Kawal, and the Tanod. In addition, they functioned as police and watchmen on land, beaches, and oceans. In 1521, in the Battle of Mactan, the Visayan ruler of Mactan Lapu-Lapu of Cebu staged the first known military assault against the Spanish conquerors.

During the nineteenth century Philippine Revolution, Andrés Bonifacio founded the Katipunan, At the Cry of Pugad Lawin, a revolutionary organization against Spain emerged.

Notable engagements included the Siege of Baler, The Conflict of Imus, Conflict of Kawit, Conflict in Nueva Ecija, the decisive Battle of Alapan and the celebrated Twin Battles of Binakayan and Dalahican.

During Independence, President General Emilio Aguinaldo founded the Magdalo organization, a distinct faction from Katipunan, he announced the revolutionary government in the First Philippine Republic's constitution.

During the Filipino-American Conflict, as a high-ranking general, General Antonio Luna ordered the conscription of all people, an obligatory form of national service (during any war), to enhance the density and personnel of the Philippine Army.

During World War II, the Philippines participated as a member of the Allied forces, fighting alongside the United States against the Imperial Japanese Army (1942–1945). The Battle of Manila, popularly known as The Liberation, was a noteworthy victory.

The Philippines became a garrison state when President Ferdinand Marcos imposed P.D.1081 or martial law in the 1970s. By the Philippine Constabulary (PC) and Integrated National Police (INP), high school or secondary and college education have a mandatory curriculum pertaining to the military and nationalism, namely Citizens Military Training (CMT) and Reserve Officers Training Corps (ROTC). When the constitution was amended in 1986, however, this sort of national service training program became optional but remained part of the basic education.

Russia's determination to safeguard its western frontier, which has no natural barriers between possible invaders from the rest of continental Europe and her heartlands in European Russia, has led to a lengthy history of militarism that continues to the present day. Since the reforms of Peter the Great, Russia has been one of Europe's major political and military powers. Throughout the Imperial period, Russia pursued territorial expansion into Siberia, the Caucasus, and Eastern Europe, ultimately capturing the majority of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.

Following the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, the end of imperial sovereignty in 1917 resulted in a loss of land, However, much of it was shortly reclaimed by the Soviet Union, including events such as the partition of Poland and reconquest of the Baltic states in the late 1930s and ‘40s.

After World War II, Soviet influence peaked throughout the Cold War era, a period during which the Soviet Union dominated practically all of Eastern Europe as part of the Warsaw Pact, with the Soviet Army playing a crucial part.

All of this was lost with the Soviet Union's disintegration in 1991.

In what Russia's second president, Vladimir Putin, dubbed the worst geopolitical catastrophe of the 20th century, Russia was severely weakened.

Nevertheless, under Putin's direction, A revived modern Russia has maintained a substantial amount of geopolitical sway in the nations that emerged after the disintegration of the Soviet Union, and modern Russia continues to dominate Eastern Europe, if not prevailing, power.

Turkey has a lengthy history of militarism.

The Ottoman Empire endured for centuries and always depended on its military strength, yet militarism was not a part of daily life. Militarism first entered daily life with the introduction of modern institutions, especially