Terrorist acts have spread and increased over the last decade.
In response, many
nations are increasing their military spending.
Yet there are other some countries that
don’t have any military at all.
The question is, who are these countries and how can they
afford to not have a military in these difficult times?
Well, there are currently twenty-three nations without an active military including
Costa Rica, Iceland, Panama and the Vatican.
And there are many reasons for this.
Some of these countries gained independence from a larger nation and chose not to
create a military because of their relatively small size and lack of foreign enemies.
Quite
simply, there isn’t enough land, resources or potential for conflict in those nations
to
mandate forming an army to protect themselves.---
Many of these countries have signed deals with other nations ensuring their security.
Some of these nations are being protected by former occupiers or their nearest
neighbors.
Australia, for example, has agreed to help the island nations of Nauru and
Kiribati; Spain and France have a protection treaty with Andorra; and the United States
has defense pacts with the Marshall Islands, Micronesia and Palau.
Some nations chose to abolish their military due to high levels of corruption.
Panama
for example dismantled their standing military after General Manuel Noriega was
arrested during an invasion by the United States, and convicted of drug trafficking,
racketeering and money laundering.
They do however continue several para-military
forces.
Both Haiti and Costa Rica‘s militaries were disbanded for similar reasons.
But again,
these countries receive some level of protection from outside sources.
As of October
2014 Haiti has over 7,200 U.N. troops and police in the country.
Costa Rica has an
arrangement with the U.S. Coast Guard to help them combat the drug trade there.
Other countries have some sort of small military force be it a national police force or
coast guard, but these forces are not enough to constitute a standing army.
Though
they sometimes participate in army like activities.
Iceland for example, sent members
of their Crisis Response Unit on foreign peacekeeping missions to Sudan, Afghanistan
and Kosovo.
But that does not make them a standing army.
They have enough troops
to run their country peacefully, but not enough to run a war.
Many of these countries will remain demilitarized, primarily because forming a military
is expensive.
Some countries will remain demilitarized for economic reasons.
In 2012, global
military spending was 2.42% of GDP.
For individual countries, this could mean millions of
dollars in savings.
In fact Haiti’s President has proposed rebuilding their military, but this would
come with a proposed price tag of $95 million dollars Plus, a reported 96% of Haitians polled
are against the idea.
Of course, there are countries all around the world who prioritize having the strongest
militaries in the world, check out our Strength of Nations Playlist.
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