Switzerland’s history shows its freedom is intimately bound up with its centuries-long tradition of military service, just like Switzerland’s prosperity is linked to its low taxes. From the start, all able-bodied men were required not only to hold weapons but to take part in mandatory military exercises and serve in the military. And this is what made Switzerland impregnable. For in Medieval war, where battles could turn on a dime and pressed serfs would flee the field of battle at the first sign of defeat, war-trained free men were the most powerful soldiers. The might of the Duke of Burgundy, in the 15th century the richest and most powerful sovereign of Europe, was broken when he tried to invade Switzerland. His expensive mercenaries were crushed by free men defending their homeland.
Just as Switzerland is known for chocolate and yodeling, so too it is known that every man in the country is a trained soldier with a rifle. This has proved a formidable deterrent: even Hitler would not dare mess with that hornet’s nest. There can be little doubt that without military service, what we know as Switzerland would be provinces of less-free countries like France and Germany, just like the once-proud dominions of Savoy and Bavaria. Without military service, Switzerland would not be free.
Horse hockey. While tanks and CAS are going to be more difficult in Switzerland, they will overpower an "army" composed merely of trained riflemen. Throw in a few engineers who know how to block mountain passes and screw up city infrastructure and you might hold back the horde and possibly drive it out because of attrition. But you are still not going to win in a straight-up force of arms contest.
Up until late in the 20th century, it was seen as self-evident that freedom is ultimately secured by force of arms, and that private citizens’ duty to freedom was to be able to defend that freedom. Standing, professional armies were seen as the tool of tyrants, and people understood that a professional army that can repel a foreign invasion can also oppress a free, unarmed people, while an army of free men is not so easily led on an endeavor of oppression. Ultimately, men are not truly free if they must rely on some other group of people for their defense.
How about for a start we change tat date to the late 19th century/early 20th century? Then we can discuss the difference between a standing army composed of citizens, as opposed to a mercenary army. But the argument is still for a standing army composed of all/most branches of arms - specialists that cannot be expected to achieve specialization capability within a short term of enlistment. For the record, in spite of the post-computer games drone pilots I do not see them as "specialists", and I wonder how many other parts of the military can develop "specialists" in the combat support areas with 90-day wonders as opposed to several (more than 2) years experiece.
In the civil realm, this is well understood by libertarians. Libertarians understand perfectly that men have a natural right to self-defense, and that to entrust only the police with the means to keep order is to give the state a tool for tyranny. A free man must be able to take his defense in his own hands
This works well for the individual. For a country there is a need to bring together a whole lot of folks who are going to need to provide for more than their individual defense.
In ancient Athens, one reason why only free men could vote was because only they could afford the expensive armament of the hoplite. Free men were soldiers and soldiers were free men. Athenian freedom created the greatest flowering of civilization in the ancient world. Athenian citizen-soldiers, superior to kings’ slave armies, built and protected what was essentially the world’s first free-trade area, creating the prosperity that enabled Archimedes to invent, Sophocles to write, Phidias to sculpt and Socrates to midwife philosophy.
Medieval monarchs would never allow a conscript military, despite its superiority, as they understood that bearing arms was the privilege of the free man, and to let all men do it, as opposed to an aristocracy of warriors, would quickly undermine their power.
Ancient Athenians needed to mass together to do melee battle because there was essentially no other form of battle. Medieval monarchs actually relied heavily on conscript armies to do the heavy dying, and used mercenaries for the specialized parts of warfare. What the author most likely was trying for is the change in politics that comes about when the common man is allowed to keep arms both for personal defense and to wage war. It's the same argument that we are currently engaged in discussing - should RKBA extend to stinger missles and hydrogen bombs? The author's own words: "But they’re both wrong—and, nowadays, neither side would probably like to acknowledge what the Second Amendment really says. For in 18th century America, “the militia” (singular) did not refer to any specific organization. Instead it referred to the whole of able-bodied men, presumed ready and willing to bear arms in defense of the nation, as they did in the War of Independence. Under the Founders-era American constitutional system, Congress would maintain a navy to protect trade, and raise an army when the need arose. This army would be powerful and easy to raise since it would come from the militia, that is to say, the community of citizen-soldiers." Those citizen-soldiers brought their own cannon (pretty much the height of military technology at that time) with them.
Going back to the notion of part-time citizen-soldiers:
Another one is the idea that military service means everyone will have to fight in a war. This is just untrue. In most militaries, frontline infantry are only a small minority of total military personnel, and those are usually picked among volunteers. A modern military requires an enormous apparatus for logistics and support, done by soldiers who are never shot at. Nowadays it’s quite possible, and even easy, to spend an entire military career without ever seeing battle. At the height of the Vietnam War, there were eight support soldiers for each frontline soldier. Even in Israel, a country which is in a perpetual state of low-level warfare, only a minority of conscripts ever see battle. For most people, military service merely involves wearing ugly green and running around in the muck while a guy yells at you.
It is probably easier to train the guys at the pointy end of the stick than the guys at the far end of the blunt end. In 13 weeks I was about as trained as the USMC could make me to start the OJT part of going to exotic lands, meeting new and different people, and killing them. OTOH, there was another 14 months of training before I was considered minimally trained to troubleshoot and repair certain cryptographic machinery. I've never been sure why, but I was also sent for 2 months to learn how to load a LST backwards without tipping it over amd making sure it had at least enough fuel to get to the invasion beachead. It took only 3 days to train me how to wade into a mob and quell them - and we spent at least as much time training on getting on and off helicopters and trucks as we did on hitting people up side the head and putting handcuffs (well, OK, flex-cuffs) on them.
There have been drastic changes in dogface soldiery since then. Front line troops today do more communicating, use lasers and IR and other stuff that in my day were considered for-specialists-only gear. But none of that is going to be possible with citizen-soldiers who drop the plough, pick up the musket, and report as ready for combat.
Which brings me back to my point - that without specialists that can only be developed by extended service in a standing army you are going to end up throwing bodies at the enemy until the enemy runs out of ammo, other supplies, or soldiers to kill you massed horde.
stay safe.
