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See and for help, or this article's talk page.A military or miltary force (n., from Latin militarius, miles "soldier") has seen many different incarnations through recorded time. Early armies may have been just men with sharpened sticks and rocks, through time they have included advancements such as men mounted on horses, men wielding swords and other metallic weapons, the bow and arrow, seige weapons, to the advance of the musket which form the roots of the armed force of most nations we know today. In modern times people, vehicles, and guns typically form an army.
While Military can refer to any armed force, it generally refers to a permanent, professional force of soldiers or guerrillas—trained exclusively for the purpose of warfare and should be distinguished from a sanctioned militia or a levy, which are temporary forces— citizen soldiers with less training, who may be 'called up' as a reserve force, when a nation mobilizes for total war, or to defend against invasion.
The doctrine that asserts the primacy of a military within a society is called militarism.
Military as an Adjective
As an adjective, "military" is a descriptive property of things related to a military—soldiers and warfare. It also refers to such context dependent terms such as military reserves which may indicate an actual unit deployable on command or the general sense, of a Nation States reserve troops available to or eligible for duty in its armed forces.
In formal British English, "military" as an adjective refers more particularly to matters relating to an army, as opposed to the naval and air force matters of the other two services.
In the United States, "military" as an adjective is more widely used for regulations pertaining to and between all the armed forces, including the United States Coast Guard, e.g. (1) 'miltary procurement', (2) 'military transport or transportation', (3) 'military justice' (4) 'military strength', (5) 'military force' or 'military forces' and (6) 'Military Reserves'.
- Common regulations and requirements for a ship or a detached unit to requisistion and draw on a base's facilies (housing, pay, and rations for detached personnel), supplies— (most commonly food stocks or materials, and vehicles) by the service running a primary base— e.g. Army units detached to or staging through an air base, a vessel calling at a port near an army or air base, an army unit drawing supplies from a naval base.
- Military transport would pertain to an equipment trans-shipped via a sister service, or an individual detached for a technical school operated by a sister service, or the travel orders and authorization of such an individual to procede via a sister services vehicles, as well as the drawing (loan of) transportation assets (staff cars, hummers, military trucks) operating from the primary base command.
- Military Justice— as in the Uniform Code of Military Justice— The statutory laws set down by the United States Congress to apply to the individual conduct within any military force of the United States— these are the specific articles under which a soldier or sailor would be tried for infractions ranging from minor (Late Return, petty theft; ) to severe (Rape, Murder); this code is usually referred to by the acronym UCMJ.
- Military "strength" is a term that describes a quantification or reference to a nation's standing military forces or the capacity for fulfillment of that military's role. For example, the military strength of a given country could be interpreted as the number of individuals in its armed forces, the destructive potential of its arsenal, or both.
- Military "Force" is a term that might refer to a particular unit, a regiment or gun boat deployed in a particular locale, or as an aggragate of such forces (e.g. "In the Gulf War the United States Central Command controled military forces (units) of each of the five military services of the United States.").
- Military Reserves of the United States— refers to specific trained pre-organized forces operating as an on call basis such as the Army Reserves, the Air Force Reserves, and the Naval Reserve, plus Militia units of the Army National Guard and Air National Guard (both under joint State and Federal control), which forces are preorganized with command staffs, equipment and facilities, but which are composed of citizen soldiers, mostly and normally personal that have left the 'regular forces' for a mainly civilian life interspersed with a regular commitment to train and drill for a contracted mininum period of each year. In the United States, a governor of a state can mobilize his National Guard Forces for a variety of domestic emergenies ranging from natural disasters (Flood, Earthquake, Forest Fires) to civil policing (riots, wilderness searches, medical pandemics), but such forces may be also called up by the National Command Authority (NCA) via the Pentagon to be deployed as additional forces available on an as needed basis. Many reserve forces have specific training and specialized talents filling a preallocated unit mission profile (e.g. Many 'Military Police' trained regular reserve units and ' National Guard units' were mobilized during the Iraq War, as were units specializing in supply, transport, engineering, et al.) These various volunteer manned units are always 'on call' and refered to as the ready reserves but might be augmented by the Inactive Reserves in time of dire emergency or total war under the United States model— the inactive reserve is composed of all former serving members of any of the US Armed Forces of military age. Individuls in this class are former members of the regular and ready reserve forces, that have opted to discontinue service in any of those organized bodys; in general, the inactive reserves are not an organized force, but a resource of trained manpower that can be mobilized similar to calling up a levy but in theory with the training of a militia. Individuals in the inactive reserves with specialized talents are from time to time also recalled into service, albeit rarely, one exception being the ongoing current need for Military Police in Iraq.
Military history
Main article: Military history
Military history is often considered to be the history of all conflicts, not just the history of proper militaries. It differs somewhat from the history of war with military history focusing on the people and institutions of war-making while the history of war focuses on the evolution of war itself in the face of changing technology, governments, and geography.
Military history has a number of purposes. One main purpose is to learn from past accomplishments and mistakes so as to more effectively wage war in the future. Another is to create a sense of tradition which is used to create cohesive military forces. Still another may be to learn to prevent wars more effectively.
Military science
Military science concerns itself with the study and of the diverse technical, psychological, and practical phenomena that encompass the events that make up warfare, especially armed combat. It strives to be an all-encompassing scientific system that if properly employed, will greatly enhance the practitioner's ability to prevail in an armed conflict with any adversary. To this end, it is unconcerned whether that adversary is an opposing military force, guerrillas or other irregulars, or even knows of or utilizes military science in return.
Specific militaries
See also Category:Militaries.
Military Alliances
See also
Books
Major books for understanding the role of the military, and the civilian leadership of the military.
- Why the Allies Won (WWII} by Richard Overy
- Many books about WWII, and other wars, focus on the military battles and campaigns. This one focuses on support roles that gave the Allies the edge when the Axis seemed to be ahead in so many senses.
- There was a structure of Scientific Management in the USA, unheard of in the Axis Powers.
- Russia relocated their industry far from the front.
- Axis nations military, particularly in Japan, had an adversarial relationship that was more important to them than the best interests of their nations.
- Allied interception of coded radio signals, and strict secrecy of what they learned from this.
- Allied sophisticated deception.
- Misleading Germany about the Normandy invasion.
- Commando raids were exceptionally successful, such as in figuring out how German Radar functioned, so as to get the correct dimensions for Chaff to Spoof it, but they were trumpeted as failures so as not to tip off German Military Intelligence about the purpose of the raids.
- In Nazi Germany no reputable Aryan wanted to have anything to do with science that had been invented by a Jew. This is one reason why Hitler never developed the Atomic Bomb.
Periodicals
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