The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) World Factbook lists 22 nations without a regular military force, but they don’t include the Vatican, an independent country in its own right. If you include the Holy See, which does have the mostly ceremonial Swiss Guard, this adds one more to the list.
Granted, the list includes seven of the world’s 10 smallest countries by land area. Besides the Vatican, this includes small island nations like Tuvalu and Nauru, as well as the Italian peninsula’s land-locked city, San Marino. Peter Stearns, a George Mason professor explains that “Traditionally, these countries weren’t subject to invasion.”
Then there are the Marshall Islands, Micronesia, and Palau, U.S. administered territories. They decided after winning their independence to let the U.S. deal with a military defense. But the most interesting nations on the list are the ones that used to have a military, but decided to do away with a standing army. Four of the nations are in Latin America and the Caribbean. Again Stearns explains this is because this area is “usually not a war-prone region.”
Of course, history shows that violence is not unknown in the Caribbean, Central, and South America. But it has usually revolved around civil wars and armed insurrections. Both Panama, in 1983, and Grenada in 1989, abolished their armies after being invaded by the United States. The U.S. might liken the invasion of these two countries to something more tasteful, like “defending democracy in the region.”
Costa Rica doesn’t have an army, officially, but the nation does have a special commando unit “trained to intercept narco-traffickers, in addition to rescuing hostages and acting as a high-intensity counter-terrorist unit,” according to journalist Robert Beckhusen. He points out the unit is “a military force in all but name,” according to the Atlantic.
But in looking over the nations on the CIA’s list, even though the countries may not have what we would consider a military force, they do have some kind of security, well-armed police force or disaster response force. No, it is not military, and often it is voluntary. Iceland is a good example of a nation on the list without a standing army. Interestingly, Iceland participates in NATO peace-keeping missions, but its force, according to the CIA, is “a civilian-led Crisis Response Unit.”
The reasons behind not having a military force
As Peter Stearns pointed out, some countries, when they were first established, or gained independence. For many nations, not having a military is a source of national pride. But being without an army is not all about being a peace-keeper, and certainly not about being a pacifist.
The answer is money, plain and simple. Military spending is probably the biggest budgeted expense some nations have. The U.S. spends 3.8 percent of its GDP on the military, while Russia spends 3.1 percent of its GDP. In comparison, Costa Rica and Panama spend zero. And even with arming and outfitting security forces, a coast guard, and border patrol, Costa Rica spends less than 0.5 percent of its GDP.
An interesting story in Wealth History gives a “what if?” scenario. In 2010, the world spent 2.6 percent of its GDP on the military. Now that’s a lot of money. This amounted to $1,600 billion globally. According to the Stern Report, preventing climate change would cost about 1.0 percent of global GDP, and United Nation goals to end poverty would amount to 0.7 percent. And there would still be some money left over.
The lofty dream of using global military GDP for something other than making war is just that, a dream. Military spending is dependent on international events. The more global friction and saber-rattling going on, the higher the threat level rises. Military spending actually declined worldwide when the Iron Curtain fell, but then came 9/11. Military spending by the U.S. and its allies went back up.
While the U.S. Defense Department has been making cuts to the military budget, there is still a lot of money being spent. But with a new kind of war going on, priorities have shifted, The war on terror is being fueled by fear, politics and uncertainty globally. A nation can’t “go to war” with terrorists, some people say, and there is truth in that. A war on terror isn’t the same as the Vietnam Conflict or WWII.
But it still begs the question of how some countries are able to get along in this world today without a military. There are no big corporations funneling money to politicians to get war-machine contracts, no worry about sending sons and daughters off to be cannon fodder, no worries at all. Life just isn’t simple anymore.