The meaning, relevance, composition and purview of Military services

Man is a social animal. It is on account of his gregarious nature that he survives and sustains in society. But survival in the society is dependent on both written and unwritten terms of conditions, without which the prospect becomes difficult, unsecured and troublesome. Active as well as healthy cooperation between man and his social environment can serve and sustain the relationship, adding to the mutual benefits of one another. Just as man needs the assurance of the society; the latter is also dependent on the cooperation of individual members. In the context of a man’s binding to the essential cores of the society; military services become important. That’s because, the service extends the much needed armor of defense and protection, assuring his safe sustenance in a society.

The trend varies from country to country with regard to the compulsion of its citizens

As far as the composition of military services are concerned; things are pretty much country specific. Each country varies with the other not only with respect of norms of appointment; but also with that of the maintenance of armed forces. There are countries which insist on active contribution and participation of individual citizens in the forces of militia. But most countries are marked by the presence of military forces to overcome the elements of hostility. Despite the presence of formalized forces, times of acute crises and war torn may necessitate participation of individual citizens; but usually these countries do not compel their citizens to include themselves in military affairs.

Lookup of how the prospect is handled across some of the countries of the world

A brief review of the country specific scenario can help elucidate the point of compulsory participation. As many as forty seven countries including India, USA and UK don’t insist on mandatory/compulsory military participation. On the other hand, countries such as Mexico, Brazil, Colombia, Denmark, Finland and Greece are marked by compulsion- where it is mandatory on part of individual citizens to render service to the cause of defense. As many as twenty five countries including the ones mentioned insist on mandatory military participation. Quite interestingly, nineteen countries of the world are marked by the absence of standing armies. Mauritius, Monaco and Vatican City are some of the examples of countries with minimum amount of military forces.

Strategic planning and the role of military- its objective in the modern scenario

Strategy of defense and that of deployment are intrinsic to the existence of military service. Generally, navy, army and air force are considered to be the composing units of military. Irrespective of the constituting units; military forces with its objective of defense are governed by strategically planned inputs. These inputs owe their origin to the strategic planning of defense. In this respect also, no two countries present the similar picture. Carl Von Clausewitz defined strategy in this way. According to him, it is “the employment of battles to gain the end of the war”. However, the modern connotation of the same goes further beyond the purview of war. War planning is important, but to go by the modern context, defense planning also relates to the prospect of diplomacy- where a country’s equation with its neighboring counterparts and others on a worldwide basis have interesting roles to offer.

Thus, services offered by military don’t begin and end with the concept of battlefield, armories of defense and deployment of forces; but has a wide realm to cover.