When most of us think about armies we think about warriors defending the country. This is not always the case. There are several different types of armies in the world. There are about 165 of them, but many aren't real armies. As determined by their primary role, there are essentially four types: ceremonial armies, political armies, police armies, and real armies.
For a newly independent country, having an army is like having a flag, a symbol of sovereignty, besides it looks good parading on official occasions. In addition, in many developing countries the army represents a political party, regularly staging coups, in some cases with different units espousing different political lines. This is nothing new. The Roman Empire fell partially because the professional soldiers spent too much time fighting with each other over who would run the show. Also, many armies are police forces, whose primary purpose is to keep internal order, frequently by means of massacres and other forms of terrorism against their own populations. Real armies, although they may have ceremonial, political, and police functions, are those that devote most of their time and energy to preparing for war with an external foe. Less than a third of all armies are real armies.
To some extent, the type of army a country has reflects its needs. But needs can change, and ceremonial, political, and police armies usually don't do well when confronted by a real army. Consider some recent instances: In Sri Lanka, the ceremonial army virtually disintegrated when faced by the Tamil insurgency, and quickly developed a penchant for massacre, rather than battle, which only exacerbated the situation. It took the Indian Army, a real army, over 10 years to convert the Sri Lankans into a real army. Similarly, the Lybian Army, which exists primarily as a police force, has proved itself incompetent against five opponents--Chadians, Egyptians, Tunisians, Tanzanians and French--in a series of clashes going back more than three decades. The Argentine Army, a political and police force, found in the Falklands that the British Army and Royal Marines were not quite what they were expecting, after several years of counterinsurgency warfare in which some 12,000 people died, mostly unarmed and including numerous women and children.
Of course, under pressure, an army's character can change, but this is difficult, painful and expensive. In 1948, most of the Arab armies were largely ceremonial forces with some police experience, which did them little good against Israel, with thousands of World War II veterans in its ranks. Defeat tended to politicize most of the Arab armies, in the '50s it was said that Syria had three political parties: the I Army Corps, the II Army Corps and the III Army Corps; which led to further defeats in 1956 and 1967. It was only then that the principal Arab armies began to become real armies, whereupon their tactical performance improved markedly.
Fortunately in the Westerm countries we have real armies, with uniformed leaders who understand the pitfalls of becoming some other type of army.
For a newly independent country, having an army is like having a flag, a symbol of sovereignty, besides it looks good parading on official occasions. In addition, in many developing countries the army represents a political party, regularly staging coups, in some cases with different units espousing different political lines. This is nothing new. The Roman Empire fell partially because the professional soldiers spent too much time fighting with each other over who would run the show. Also, many armies are police forces, whose primary purpose is to keep internal order, frequently by means of massacres and other forms of terrorism against their own populations. Real armies, although they may have ceremonial, political, and police functions, are those that devote most of their time and energy to preparing for war with an external foe. Less than a third of all armies are real armies.
To some extent, the type of army a country has reflects its needs. But needs can change, and ceremonial, political, and police armies usually don't do well when confronted by a real army. Consider some recent instances: In Sri Lanka, the ceremonial army virtually disintegrated when faced by the Tamil insurgency, and quickly developed a penchant for massacre, rather than battle, which only exacerbated the situation. It took the Indian Army, a real army, over 10 years to convert the Sri Lankans into a real army. Similarly, the Lybian Army, which exists primarily as a police force, has proved itself incompetent against five opponents--Chadians, Egyptians, Tunisians, Tanzanians and French--in a series of clashes going back more than three decades. The Argentine Army, a political and police force, found in the Falklands that the British Army and Royal Marines were not quite what they were expecting, after several years of counterinsurgency warfare in which some 12,000 people died, mostly unarmed and including numerous women and children.
Of course, under pressure, an army's character can change, but this is difficult, painful and expensive. In 1948, most of the Arab armies were largely ceremonial forces with some police experience, which did them little good against Israel, with thousands of World War II veterans in its ranks. Defeat tended to politicize most of the Arab armies, in the '50s it was said that Syria had three political parties: the I Army Corps, the II Army Corps and the III Army Corps; which led to further defeats in 1956 and 1967. It was only then that the principal Arab armies began to become real armies, whereupon their tactical performance improved markedly.
Fortunately in the Westerm countries we have real armies, with uniformed leaders who understand the pitfalls of becoming some other type of army.
