Nation and Military

The relationship between the nation and the military is one of being the reason for each other's existence. A nation necessitates the existence of a military to protect it, and the nation exists because the military protects it.

It is because of nationalism and its conflict-causing tendencies that the need for armed forces arises. Nations need a military for their ambitions to grow and dominate, and also to protect themselves from others’ expansionism. Nations are often involved in disputes, which can also flare up into military conflict.

Most nations portray their armed forces as purely defensive in nature, their purpose being to defend the nation against ‘foreign threats’. But, paradoxically, those threats are the military build-ups of other nations. Thus the world is locked in an endless arms race from which the only way out is complete disarmament; this is only possible if the nations are also dismantled.

Being part of the military is the most extreme form of nationalism. The strength of identification is such that people are willing to kill and be killed for the nation. While nationalists glorify this as the ultimate in patriotism, causing human suffering in the name of an imaginary identity is nothing glorious.

In a united, nationless world there is no need for a military because there is no one to fight. The goal of world peace can only be achieved if the nations and their forces are done away with, for nationalism is the cause of most military conflict. Let the people of the world stop fighting within themselves and unite as humanity; the world owes it to the millions killed in nationalist wars.