Understanding Armed Forces

What constitutes “Armed Forces” can vary depending on the country. It can be a very specific reference to what might also be referred to as the military, which are those forces responsible for national defense, generally from foreign threats, but it can ultimately be any force that is armed and operating under the color of authority.

Some nations do not have militaries; they simply have law enforcement who are often armed. Law enforcement, conceptually, is very strictly bounded by being solely responsible for seeing that the documented laws of a nation are enforced. These laws can relate to national security but will always be limited to enforcement in areas of national jurisdiction, which is usually within the national borders. Law enforcement in some countries can be activated or mobilized to serve as a military armed force to execute policy decisions related to national security not bounded by the typical national laws that are enforced daily.

There are often paramilitaries in countries that have various degrees of powers and perhaps even legitimacy. Paramilitaries are often characterized by being more heavily armed than common police or law enforcement but have a narrower role than a military. Paramilitaries can be border police, specialized riot control forces, anti-terrorism, internal security, or a national police. Some governments have a specialized police, security, or other force, that has a powerful intelligence and armed capability that can largely operate beyond any national laws to do whatever is necessary to protect the apparent legitimacy of the regime. In some countries powerful paramilitary can simply be no more than a gang of ruffians that were close allies of the nation’s leader.

Another armed force, albeit one that is presumably commercial and governed by contracts is the private military company, or PMC. A PMC is distinct from a mercenary in that a PMC is substantial laws, whereas a mercenary likely recognizes no regulatory scheme that interferes with its pursuit of business. PMCs can be heavily armed and often consist of many highly trained former military persons. A PMC contract can put them alongside militaries or law enforcement as determined by the scope of the contract awarded them by a government. PMCs can also be contracted by non-governmental entities, but the scope of their work, and how they perform it, would have to be consistent with the recognized regulatory regimes that govern the company and where it operates.

The value of thinking through what could constitute anyone’s definition of an armed force is to help think through the definition of “war”. Too often we think of war as being armed conflict between national militaries without recognizing that the war is not really armed conflict, it is the uncompromising conflict of ideologies. Even though war does not require an armed conflict, you can often see where uncompromising conflicts of ideologies are because oppression of the conflicts is often where armed forces are used.  Oppression can be reasonable and simply right from the perspective of most, but there are times when it is unreasonable and unrighteous to too many, if not most.