A
standing army is an
army composed of full-time career
soldiers who 'stand over', in other words, who do not disband during times of peace. They differ from
army reserves who are activated only during such times as
war or
natural disasters. Standing armies tend to be better equipped, better trained, and better prepared for emergencies, defensive deterrence and particularly wars.
[Wills, Garry (1999). A Necessary Evil, A History of American Distrust of Government New York, NY; Simon & Schuster. ISBN 0684844893]The army of ancient Rome is considered to have been a standing army during some of the republic period and especially towards the end of the republic following the
Marian Reforms in 107BC. Here Marius abolished the old system of raising a citizen army based on property and replaced it with a professional army based on a period of service. This continued into the
Roman Empire.
The Hungarian king
Matthias Corvinus had a standing army from the 1460's called the
Fekete Sereg, which was an unusually big army in its age, accomplishing a series of victories and capturing parts of
Austria,
Vienna (1485) and parts of
Bohemia.
The first 'modern' standing armies in Europe were the
Janissaries of the
Ottoman Empire, formed in the fourteenth century AD. In western Europe the first standing army was established by
Charles VII of France in the fifteenth century. The establishment of a standing army in
Britain in 1685 by
King James II and the later assumption of control over the British Colonies in America by the
British Army were controversial, leading to distrust of peacetime armies too much under the power of the
head of state, versus
civilian control of the military, resulting in
tyranny.
In his influential work
The Wealth of Nations (published 1776), economist
Adam Smith comments that standing armies are a sign of modernizing society as modern warfare requires increased skill and discipline of regularly trained standing armies. Since the eighteenth century standing armies have been an integral part of the defense of the majority of more economically developed countries.
In
Great Britain, and the
British Colonies in America, there was a sentiment of distrust of a standing army not in civilian control. In Great Britain, this led to the
British Bill of Rights which reserves authority over a standing army to the Parliament, not the King, and more nuanced in the United States, led to the
U.S. Constitution (
Article 1, Section 8) which reserves by virtue of "
power of the purse" similar authority to Congress, instead of to the President. The President, however, retains
command of the armed forces when they are raised, as
commander-in-chief.
See also
