Page:Karl Liebknecht - Militarism (1917).djvu/82

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MILITARISM

from a military point of view a veritable counterpart of Germany, except perhaps that her troops are given a more serviceable war training.

CONCLUSIONS. RUSSIA.

It follows from all this that the size and the particular character of the organization of an army accommodate themselves to the international situation, to the function the army has as regards the exterior enemy. The international tension is driving states (even those which are not yet capitalist and which compete with and have to protect themselves against the capitalist states) to train all citizens capable of bearing arms and to adopt the most rigorous form of military organization, the standing conscript army. This can be considerably relaxed by natural causes as, for instance, by the insular position of Great Britain or the comparatively insular situation of the United States, and by artificial political means as, for instance, the neutralization of Switzerland and the states of the Low Countries. But the function of "militarism for home," against the interior enemy,