Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

No Army? No Problem: Defending the Home Front in Ancient Greece

historytoday.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 140 posts

Re: No Army? No Problem: Defending the Home Front in Ancient Greece

#11

Post by xhevahir »

WastingMyTime89 wrote: post #5
kkfx wrote: post #3

The real interesting part is the Swiss model, or instead of having a big army a small one with heavy weapons and a popular conscription one month (paid) per year 18-28 years range, for the rest. That's interesting because: - it's not good to go to war OUTSIDE country borders - power are balanced: the State can count (perhaps) on army, but if it goes against the people they are trained and armed, with less heavy weapo…

Powers are not balanced in Switzerland. The reason most modern countries stopped conscription is because infantrymen are far less useful than they used to be in combats - they remain useful if you want to control the place you have invaded but are not that useful to do the actual invading. Advanced weaponry is just too efficient: artillery, helicopters, planes, drones, missiles. Switzerland is not even really trying…

I think they're wrong about modern Switzerland, but they raise an issue that's crossed my mind occasionally: that Athenian democracy followed the emergence of the phalanx, a technology that favored the use of large, non-specialized citizen armies, and that our current military technology is the polar opposite of that.

Re: No Army? No Problem: Defending the Home Front in Ancient Greece

#12

Post by kkfx »

rob74 wrote: post #6
kkfx wrote: post #3

The real interesting part is the Swiss model, or instead of having a big army a small one with heavy weapons and a popular conscription one month (paid) per year 18-28 years range, for the rest. That's interesting because: - it's not good to go to war OUTSIDE country borders - power are balanced: the State can count (perhaps) on army, but if it goes against the people they are trained and armed, with less heavy weapo…

...or it could be a recipe for civil war if those trained and armed people split into different factions. I don't see that happening in Switzerland, but that's probably one of the reasons why this model hasn't caught on a lot.

Swiss is actually deeply split: German-speaking think they are the best, they have to rule, their Calvinist vision is the best etc, French-speaking populations they are the best, their social and democratic model is far superior to the raw and sore German-speaking Calvinist one, Italian-speaking populations think they are the best, a bridge between French and German groups, French-speaking ones are just hippie with too much power and richness, German-speaking are unable to enjoy life etc, Ladin/Romance populations think they are the sole real Swiss and the others oppress them just because they are numerically superior etc

BUT they know being unite is needed and they choose carefully to distribute power around groups to make hard one being able to rule others or some unite against others and they choose a language no-one use (Latin) as a good symbol of "we are unite, but we are all different and together"...

IMVHO this model is not accepted by most countries is because anyone like or dream power and in this model there is no absolute power by anyone so any decision need to be discussed and lobby can't do that much. Oh, it's not perfect, we see recent schizophrenic referendums rows, sure Swiss is not poor anymore, the poorest mercenaries of big European powers of the past, so they can count on being a safe harbor for anyone else etc. BUT try to compare Swiss to Lebanon (the ex-Middle-est Swiss almost anybody forgot)...

Re: No Army? No Problem: Defending the Home Front in Ancient Greece

#14

Post by dendriti »

planetis wrote: post #13

Quoted post unavailable.

It is deeply amusing to see a NATO state and occupier of Afghanistan wax poetically about the rule of law and territorial integrity.

The Greek MFA makes some good points about the threat of Turkish incursions, but I wish they'd be less hypocritical about it.

Re: No Army? No Problem: Defending the Home Front in Ancient Greece

#15

Post by dotancohen »

rob74 wrote: post #6
kkfx wrote: post #3

The real interesting part is the Swiss model, or instead of having a big army a small one with heavy weapons and a popular conscription one month (paid) per year 18-28 years range, for the rest. That's interesting because: - it's not good to go to war OUTSIDE country borders - power are balanced: the State can count (perhaps) on army, but if it goes against the people they are trained and armed, with less heavy weapo…

...or it could be a recipe for civil war if those trained and armed people split into different factions. I don't see that happening in Switzerland, but that's probably one of the reasons why this model hasn't caught on a lot.

This is what happened in south Syria. Before the Libyan mercenaries arrived, the real civil war started when citizens armed by the government revolted to a heavy-handed government crackdown against schoolchildren. Those citizens were armed with heavy weaponry by the Syrian ministry of defense, in case of Israeli attack.

Then the displaced farmers revolted (this is why the war is sometimes blamed on climate change), then the Libyans came, then ISIS and Russia and the whole mess we see today.

Re: No Army? No Problem: Defending the Home Front in Ancient Greece

#16

Post by throw93232 »

planetis wrote: post #13

Quoted post unavailable.

Turkey has a point though, relevant treaty says those islands should be demilitarised. If Greece is not happy about that, it should renegotiate and sign new treaty.

Dismissing someone greavances as "warmongering" will just escalate war.

Re: No Army? No Problem: Defending the Home Front in Ancient Greece

#17

Post by dotancohen »

kkfx wrote: post #12
rob74 wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

...or it could be a recipe for civil war if those trained and armed people split into different factions. I don't see that happening in Switzerland, but that's probably one of the reasons why this model hasn't caught on a lot.

Swiss is actually deeply split: German-speaking think they are the best, they have to rule, their Calvinist vision is the best etc, French-speaking populations they are the best, their social and democratic model is far superior to the raw and sore German-speaking Calvinist one, Italian-speaking populations think they are the best, a bridge between French and German groups, French-speaking ones are just hippie with t…

As you described Switzerland I immediately thought of Lebanon. Lebanon has the added complication of extraordinary interest of its two neighbors in Lebanon's internal affairs. In your opinion, could that be the difference between the successful Swiss implementation and the largely failing Lebanese implementation?

Re: No Army? No Problem: Defending the Home Front in Ancient Greece

#18

Post by anilakar »

WastingMyTime89 wrote: post #5
kkfx wrote: post #3

The real interesting part is the Swiss model, or instead of having a big army a small one with heavy weapons and a popular conscription one month (paid) per year 18-28 years range, for the rest. That's interesting because: - it's not good to go to war OUTSIDE country borders - power are balanced: the State can count (perhaps) on army, but if it goes against the people they are trained and armed, with less heavy weapo…

Powers are not balanced in Switzerland. The reason most modern countries stopped conscription is because infantrymen are far less useful than they used to be in combats - they remain useful if you want to control the place you have invaded but are not that useful to do the actual invading. Advanced weaponry is just too efficient: artillery, helicopters, planes, drones, missiles. Switzerland is not even really trying…

> most modern countries stopped conscription is because infantrymen are far less useful than they used to be in combats

The fallacy here is that conscripts == infantry, when frontline troops account for a minority of the whole force. Sweden had to overturn their decision to abolish conscription in less than a decade.

Post reply on HN