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Switzerland has no standing army and they have a respectable GDP. You could pull off a “Switzerland but with defensive nuclear second strike capability” model
by mullingitover 9mo ago
Switzerland has no standing army and they have a respectable GDP.
You could pull off a “Switzerland but with defensive nuclear second strike capability” model in this era and it’d work fine.
- adgjlsfhk1 9mo agoSwitzerland has a standing army with ~150k active personel, upon which they spend 1% GDP, and which includes a half year conscription https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swiss_Armed_Forces https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swiss_Armed_Forces.
- mullingitover 9mo agoRight, but it’s a citizen militia rather than a permanent professional army.
- qcnguy 9mo agoIt's a permanent professional army, where are you getting this stuff? Switzerland has an air force and everything. They also have a large trained citizen militia but it's supported by a backbone of a professional standing army.
- mullingitover 9mo ago> They also have a large trained citizen militia but it's supported by a backbone of a professional standing army. Less than 10% are full timers, the vast majority are conscripts and volunteers. Even officers generally aren't full timers[1]. All I'm saying is, there's a spectrum of 'Complete citizen militia, as envisioned by the framers of the US Constitution' all the way over to 'Standing army as it exists in the US today', and Switzerland is obviously much closer to the former than the latter. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swiss_Armed_Forces#Personnel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swiss_Armed_Forces#Personnel