Military in Less Developed Countries From Archaeological

¶ … Military in Less Developed Countries

From archaeological records, we can tell that warfare and aggression have been part of human history for thousands of years. Since the rise of urbanization about 5,000 years ago, war has been part of most every civilization. One source, in fact, notes: " . . . 14,500 wards have taken place between 3500 BC and the late 20th century, killing 3.5 billion people and leaving only 300 years of peace" (Henderson, 2010, p. 212). Psychologically, humans seem predisposed to war and conflict for a variety of reasons: economic conflict, political conflict, violent crime, conquest, or power. Marxian theory says that war takes place due to competition for resources, yet the Malthusian theory says wars occur because of either a power vacuum or as expanding populations encounter scare resources. Yet neither of these theories explains one of the odd facts of the 20th century -- that of the replacement of colonial regimes with military or autocratic regimes controlled by the military when the colonial powers leave (Cashman, 2010).

Part 1 - Ironically, the role of the military in less developed countries tends to be disproportionate to the GDP of the entire country. For example, lesser developed countries like Syria, Iran and Pakistan often spend more than the United States and the UK as a portion of their GDP. In 2008, for instance, about $1.5 trillion was spent on military issues globally. Of that, the United States and Europe (1st world) spent 68% of the total, while the rest of the world (2nd and 3rd world) spent 32%. While this might show that the developed world spends more, it is misleading because as a portion of their own economies, this spending doubled or tripled the developed world (Institute for Strategic Studies, 2009). Other examples of countries that are small yet spend a large portion on military are: Guinea-Bissau (2.1% of GDP); Burundi (3.8%); Tajikistan (2.2%); Djibouti (3.7%), Kyrgyzstan (3.6%); Turkmenistan (2.9%); Chad (6.2%); Namibia (3.7%); Botswana (3%); and Armenia (4.2%) (SIPRI, 2012).

Within these, and other LDCs, we find that the military has either replaced a European Colonial power (Africa), another large power (the U.S.S.R. And the Asiatic Republics), or a power vacuum of sorts resulting from a coup or revolution. The military role in these countries tends to be one of a national police force, keeping the population in order and a government in power based on military resources: "those who control the guns control the country." This view holds that militarism, or the desire that a country is stronger with the military branches in control, may indeed be more efficient, but also limits personal freedom and political dissent. By mixing the views of the glorification of the military (e.g. Cuba's Castro) with nationalism, military rule tries to justify its existence by claiming to form an obstacle to enemies within and outside that society. In the example of Cuba, in one sense this helped the agricultural sector by giving them land and more power, but without trade, modernization and trade were not robust enough to allow a higher standard of living. As of 2012, there are, however, only two official military dictatorships, North Korea and Fiji, but several other cases, mostly in Africa and South America, in which the military remains a powerful part of the government.