No Army? No Problem: Defending the Home Front in Ancient Greece | Hacker News Reader

No Army? No Problem: Defending the Home Front in Ancient Greece

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99 pointsdiodorus131 comments

I'm disappointed the article didn't have a link towards a copy of the book; at this point I think most copyright have expired, no?

Here's one I found: http://demonax.info/doku.php?id=text:how_to_survive_under_si...

I wouldn't expect to see a link, unless the article was occasioned by the publication of a new edition. This author probably is in the habit of referring to the original Greek, and may have found older, public-domain translations of it to be somehow unsatisfactory.

Thank you so much for this link. It was a very interesting read.

I especially liked his guidelines and best practices for passwords usage and a kind of early form of 2FA.

What you linked is quite possibly still under copyright. The original greek should be public domain, but the translation is dated 1927, and works from 1927 won't enter the public domain until January 2023.

IIRC, the default is that works from 1927 are public domain in the US now. It would only still be protected if the author filed additional paperwork at the right time(s). However I don't know how easy it is to determine whether or not that's the case.

Don't rush to conclusions before consulting a good lawyer specialized in ancient Greek copyright law.

It will only cost you a few thousand dollars per hour.

But it's worth it. Who knows, you might even face retroactive jail time in ancient Greece for such infringement...

> In the mid-fourth century BC, an experienced Greek general decided to spend his retirement doing something different – writing a book sharing his expertise with the general public.

In mid-fourth century BCE, was writing a book really sharing with the general public? They had no printing press. How many would read a book? Who was it really written for?

This was around the time that libraries--with armies of scribes--became popular as political tools to help govern and disseminate Hellenistic culture, so this seems like a reasonable thing for a Greek general to do in that context.

Interesting question really, but considering the amount of philosophy and other record information we have from Greece they probably had some system of disseminating this information. I would imagine the intent would be to create a few copies, send them out to the officials of various cities who would then use the information to educate the general populous because what benefit would one derive from living in a under defended city.

There were many more books historically than most people uninterested in history suspect up do deep antiquity.

Books were very precious. A 5th century monthly salary of a scribe was enough to buy a house.

Yet, 99%+ of written data from Greece, and Rome is lost. We lost both archival data, and literature. First to rot, second to book burning.

Literature was state sponsored for most of classical period, and "casual" writing all about propagating Greek culture to "not-so-Greeks" (Thracians, North Africans)

Literature was subsidised not so much for elites, but to create more elites

Luddites, and book burners are your typical strongman elite who rule by swinging a club.

Luddites were not strongman elites. They were working class labor rights activists, protesting the grossly unfair balance of power induced by rapid industrialization.

You are bringing up a beautiful question.

Were Luddites pro-elite, or anti-elite? Factory technology was definitely something both hated, and intentionally propagated.

Violent conflicts were fought by different stacking frame manufacturers for making them cheaper, and more efficient than one other.

Similarly Saddam attacked Kuwait on the premise of selling oil cheap, and diluting his power.

Knowledge, sophistication, and culture was an alternative to "eliteness" given by having the biggest stick around.

What Greek, and Roman elites realised naturally 2000 years ago, and what we do not now is that knowledge, and culture were power, and that power must be prevented from being monopolised.

Scholars, historians, artisans, and scribes were patronised by the state to prevent "eliteness" being monopolised by clans, and powerful families.

A good way to prevent a man with the biggest stick from seizing power is to give more sticks to other people. And similarly "cultural eliteness" was kept accessible to foreign gentry to drag them into Greek society, so they don't try to reach "elitness" by swinging the stick.

Human civilization depends on cooperation, which can be obtained through numerous mechanisms -- everything from violent coercion to mutual aid to shared ideals. The more effective forms of cooperation depend on a shared imaginary space (culture). I especially appreciate what you've written about the danger of monopolization of this imaginary space.

Today, we talk about "information bubbles", but it seems the effect is that we've simply carved up this imaginary space into little city states so that two people of the same age from the same town can disagree on who won the last presidential election.

Is there something I can read about that, especially the population of books (number, content, etc.)?

> most people uninterested in history

No need to denigrate people who don't know some things that you do! Thanks for sharing it.

I didn't read that as denigration at all—"uninterested" isn't disparaging, right? It's not even insult-adjacent-in-colloquial-use-but-not-elsewhere like "ignorant", is it?

IMHO the clear implication is 'ignorant' - that's what connects the dots of 'uninterested' and 'don't know this fact'. Also, for intellectuals / geeks / whatever, being uninterested in history is not a compliment!

Not the worst insult ever, but why even go to the place of presuming things about other people? Still, I hope I expressed my objection proportionally to the comment; sorry if I didn't.

I think it's only (unintentionally) mildly/potentially offensive to someone who's interested, but still ignorant of the fact, or under some misconception etc.

The almost unreasonable effectiveness of citizen-soldier over the ages is often underappreciated. It takes life-long dedication and a whole martial culture for professionals to keep the upper hand (medieval Europe, Sparta)

Overall the Spartans weren't even much more effective. They took some losses battling other Greek city-states. Their martial prowess has been somewhat exaggerated.

https://acoup.blog/2019/09/20/collections-this-isnt-sparta-p...

>Their martial prowess has been somewhat exaggerated.

That straight wins/losses analysis leaves something wanting. Which were defensive battles and which were offensive ones? Could their reputation have prevented defensive battles which they would have otherwise subsequently won? And maybe more important, if it would have prevented battles they would have lost. The "If" reply being of course the famous example.

I think the straight win/loss ratio underestimates them a bit, but it's more to show they're nowhere near the 100% dominant force their reputation leads one to expect. The author's overall take is they were likely the best among Greece at the time, but not by a ton.

I think that their martial discipline and military life style is what they are famous for. Again, I think that the failure of the effectiveness of their of their military training simply shows that in war there are a lot of factors. Sth that can be seen even in our times, the US effectively lost in Vietnam or Iraq even though their military was far superior.

You take for granted that the Spartans were good at war, and reconcile "Spartans good at war" and "Spartans lost to other city-states" by concluding that there are "a lot of factors". Why not revise your assumption that Spartans were good at war?

Sparta won the Peloponnesian War, even though it relied on making major social and military changes (building a navy, relying more on auxiliary troops than core elite troops) to accomplish that. The other bit is that if one ais trying to draw a distinction between Athenian reliance on citizen-soldier hoplites and the reliance on crack troops reliant on masses of helots, that distinction was muddled during the Peloponnesian War as heavy infantry combat became much less relevant on all sides as naval warfare (manned by masses of both slaves and paid troops) became much more important.

It also doesn't really make much sense to say that Sparta's reliance on its elite core lead to its eventual subordination to Macedonia. Macedon under Philip and Alexander was also built around an elite core -- the Companion Cavalry supported by the sarissa-armed infantry, which were relatively lightly armored compared to traditional Athenian/Spartan heavy infantry. It also doesn't really make that much sense to try to draw clear ethical distinctions between the Macedonians and the Spartans. One of the most common lines to read in the Campaigns of Alexander is "all the men remaining in the city were killed, and then the women and children were sold into slavery."

What's clear is that Spartans gained the reputation for having the most elite heavy infantry during the time period, at the time when heavy infantry proved to be the most important type of fighter on land. Then, in a generation or two, elite heavy infantry became a lot less important, and Sparta had demographic difficulties in replenishing its numbers, particularly of its core elite fighters. Light infantry with significantly less training became more important, as did light cavalry (no stirrups invented yet). Naval fighting became a lot more important also. So, what they were the best at became of decreasing relevance, and also their intensive training methods abetted by extreme social stratification didn't scale to the intensity of the conflict during the Peloponnesian War. To win, they had to make a bunch of massive adaptations and ally with the Persians.

I don't think Sparta's victory in the Peloponnesian War proves they were better at war. The war was a stalemate on land between Sparta and Athens. Athens ruled the waves but couldn't parlay that into victory. Athens committed a major blunder in its invasion of Sicily and that allowed Sparta to win.

They were certainly quite good at least at keeping numerically dominant helots down.

Plenty of places in ancient times used terror successfully to keep large slave populations in their place. But if you count up Sparta's win/loss record in known battles against other armies, they're almost exactly 50%. And they were 0-2 against the Macedonian phalanx.

Kind of the opposite to Napoleon. Sparta fought one famous battle and is seen as invincible, Napoleon won almost all his battles, lost one decisive battle at Waterloo (incredibly close) and since then is seen as a looser. Propaganda is powerful tool.

Being good at war and being capable of keeping enslaved population via massive brutality and control are not the same thing.

Sparta is famous for having a really, really good PR agency. It's telling that their most famous military operation is fighting a rearguard action where they comprised less than 10% of the total forces. Their famous martial discipline and military life style? Our contemporary sources wax poetical about these... before footnotes saying that's what it should be and used to be, but isn't actually anymore.

It should be noted that, when you compare the descriptions of Spartan military education with modern studies of child soldiers, you realize that's exactly what Sparta was: a society of child soldiers. It's the same procedures of indoctrination and ritual initiation. You want to extol their military life, go to the Lord's Resistance Army or similar counterparts today.

Strip away the romanticism of Sparta, and you're left with a slave society whose military is based on child soldiers that struggles to fight battles next door, which is curb-stomped by next major military force to sweep in (the Macedonians), produced nothing of note in lasting cultural artifacts... but has the best publicists of the ancient world!

> Sparta is famous for having a really, really good PR agency.

This is a very figurative claim, yes? It seems untrue otherwise. I've never heard of Sparta having a propaganda organization, least of all an outward facing one. Obviously their social structure indoctrinated their own into itself, but that's not the same thing as having a PR agency. As far as I'm aware, everything known/believed about the Spartans today comes from people who weren't Spartans, like Xenophon and Plutarch. The Spartans didn't write about themselves, or if they did, those writings didn't survive.

The better sentence I should have written is "Sparta is famous because it had a really, really good PR agency," as opposed to "for having". The general point is that Sparta lived much more on its reputation (fueled by the likes of Xenophon and Plutarch) than its actual historical record.

I'm not really sure what distinction you're making between "reputation" and "actual historical record". When examining the military reputations of the ancient world, primary sources seem few and far between. So yes, those that are well reputed are so reputed because other people wrote about them. Or rarely, because they wrote about themselves.

The rare first hand accounts seem most suspect of them all; Julius Caesar's [ghostwritten?] Commentaries on the Gallic Wars is flagrant propaganda. PR in the truest sense possible.

On the other hand you have Scipio Africanus, who like Julius Caesar has a reputation for being one of the greatest generals ever. But anything he wrote about himself is long gone; his reputation was built by other people writing about what they think he said or did. The archeological record (the 'actual historical record'?) backs up some basic facts about the Second Punic War, but doesn't say much specifically about Scipio Africanus.

Which ancient men with lofty reputations can be said to have their reputations without "PR"?

In the Classical world, the military success of Macedon and Rome are indisputable. Both of those empires were built on the backs of being able to consistently defeat their opponents in military battles. When you look at the Spartan success rate, even among the much smaller group of peer city states, Sparta doesn't look like a nigh-unstoppable military juggernaut the way that Macedon and Rome do.

It's more that authoritarian elites in other city-states liked to write about how awesome Sparta was, than that Sparta had a good PR organization.

[EDIT] Now that I think about it, it's got some parallels with some American and British elites' infatuation with Nazi Germany and Stalinist Russia, at least until the wars started and/or the news of atrocities became irrefutable (and sometimes, even after that)

> It's more that authoritarian elites in other city-states liked to write about how awesome Sparta was, than that Sparta had a good PR organization.

Yes, that's my take as well. Xenophon particularly stands out in this regard. Xenophon's laconophilia was the result of his personal experience with the Spartans, not the product of Spartan propaganda.

> Now that I think about it, it's got some parallels with some American and British elites' infatuation with Nazi Germany and Stalinist Russia

Some parallels, however there is ample evidence that Nazi Germany did have an aggressive propaganda campaign (the Spartans may have, but there's no evidence for it.) The degree to which American/British nazi sympathizers were influenced by Nazi produced propaganda rather than their personal experiences with nazis is hard to ascertain. I think it was probably a mix of both.

It makes sense to talk up the guys you beat, since it amplifies your own achievements. Did the victors write about the Spartans?

Neither Xenophon nor Plutarch beat Sparta, nor were beat by Sparta. Plutarch was writing about things the Spartans had supposedly said or done a thousand years before. Xenophon was an Athenian mercenary and military commander who fought alongside the Spartans, not against them, and became a Laconophile from the experience. The perception of his alignment with Sparta (and his association with Socrates) severely harmed his reputation in Athens. He was eventually banished by Athens after being on Sparta's side at the Battle of Coronea.

It's an incredibly strange thing, from a historical perspective to have any distinction between the term citizen and the term soldier. It was, for every definition of the term citizen until 1973 (or perhaps until 1920), an obligation of all citizens that they fight when their country (or cit-y) was at war. This is why they were male, why the bearing of arms was so important (because depending on the time, you'd bring your own), and why civic spirit is high in such societies. Citizen societies embrace the cameraderie of a war band, whose freedom is guaranteed by their own hands. This is why the disjunction between citizen and slave existed, because citizens were those people, or the descendents of those people who guaranteed their freedom, and their property (land, cattle, etc.) by force of arms.

Now it's just a little blue passport book.

see also Starship Troopers (R A Heinlein) - a short story aimed at a particular audience perhaps but makes explicit this concept.

Is it citizen-soldier vs professional, or is it a case of defense vs attack? Given an equivalent foe, how would they square up in defending their homelands?

It's citizen-soldier. Roman farmers took over a good chunk of the ancient world before having a professional army, American clerks and tradesmen landed in Normandy.

The real interesting part is the Swiss model, or instead of having a big army a small one with heavy weapons and a popular conscription one month (paid) per year 18-28 years range, for the rest.

That's interesting because:

- it's not good to go to war OUTSIDE country borders

- power are balanced: the State can count (perhaps) on army, but if it goes against the people they are trained and armed, with less heavy weapons, but much bigger numbers

The last missing parts is ERASING military-industrial complex or having weapons ONLY built by the State in State-owned factories out of State-only research, with conscription for manufacturing industries IF we need to scale for a war, but ONLY in this case and ONLY in emergency mode.

These are the basic tools to maintain a Democracy avoid dangerous shifts.

...or it could be a recipe for civil war if those trained and armed people split into different factions. I don't see that happening in Switzerland, but that's probably one of the reasons why this model hasn't caught on a lot.

This is what happened in south Syria. Before the Libyan mercenaries arrived, the real civil war started when citizens armed by the government revolted to a heavy-handed government crackdown against schoolchildren. Those citizens were armed with heavy weaponry by the Syrian ministry of defense, in case of Israeli attack.

Then the displaced farmers revolted (this is why the war is sometimes blamed on climate change), then the Libyans came, then ISIS and Russia and the whole mess we see today.

How convenient to "forget" "western" factors and blame everyone else instead.

From the way I saw it the Western factors came later, mostly in response to Russian and ISIS involvement, and thus fall into the category of "the whole mess we see today".

Though I do see your point, many people like to cherry-pick parts of conflicts that serve their worldview and ignore other parts, so it may appear to you that was what I did as well. Both sides of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict love to discuss certain events and limit the discussion to only those periods during which their favoured side was "right".

So that was in fact not my intention. You are invited and welcome to mention the Western factors that you see relevant.

The Wikileaks diplomatic cables releases showed the US had been funding the opposition groups in Syria for years. Then, shortly after the war began CIA operation Timber Sycamore began supplying the opposition faction with weapons, supplies and training. Also, official US intervention happened before official Russian intervention.

While I won't deny the Russian or ISIS involvement, the US was also always involved.

Thank you for mentioning that. I do have some reading to do this evening.

This one was not caused by west in any way. West joined way later.

Oh, and you conveniently ignore Russian factor too - they were the ones targeting hospitals and ranking up civilian causalities as a strategy.

When you look at the role that the West played in the Arab spring movement in general, specifically Intel agencies destabilizing Libya, and supporting extremist movements, the rapid pull out of Iraq, when it was known that extremist factions were waiting for this to happen...the West had it's hands all over this. The West was involved from the beginning, just not in obvious ways.

Every time there are protests against a dictator, it is west doing. There is no way those dictatorships would had people protesting them when opportunity arises. It is all CIA opsec, whether Arab spring or Ukraine or anything. /s

Nah.

Concerning Ukraine, the CIA literally funded the Banderas movement for years, even going so far as to protect people from the Nuremberg trials to ensure that Ukraine would have a resistance movement under the USSR. This is not classified information anymore. And until recently, you could listen to a phone call with Secretary Nuland as she discussed who should be placed into power in the anti-Lukaschenko movement. She also discusses how the EuroMaidan protests would need at least 100 dead in order to justify American support and intervention.

Gaddafi, we enforced no fly zones and called on NATO to help the the Muslim brotherhood oust Gaddafi. In WikiLeaks cables, Clinton bragged about taking out Gaddafi, as well as in public, and Blumenthal even discussed investing in an arms company in order to profit from the conflict.

In Syria, we watched no fly zones being established that protected ISIS, while ISIS was condemned publicly by the same politicians that protected them. Then the CIA sent arms to "moderate rebels" that were simply rebranded IS groups. Some of those groups, after receiving arms, went public with their allegiance to IS.

Don't forget Osama Bin Laden and Al Qaeda, another group that the US had a heavy hand in creating in order to creating.

And we've done stuff like this on every single continent. Patrice Lumumba got too friendly with the Russians and communism. Haven't even gotten to South America.

And I'm someone that would consider themselves very anti communist, but I can acknowledge that the US has been involved in some incredibly destructive behind the scenes foreign policy. This stuff isn't really disputed.

Swiss is actually deeply split: German-speaking think they are the best, they have to rule, their Calvinist vision is the best etc, French-speaking populations they are the best, their social and democratic model is far superior to the raw and sore German-speaking Calvinist one, Italian-speaking populations think they are the best, a bridge between French and German groups, French-speaking ones are just hippie with too much power and richness, German-speaking are unable to enjoy life etc, Ladin/Romance populations think they are the sole real Swiss and the others oppress them just because they are numerically superior etc

BUT they know being unite is needed and they choose carefully to distribute power around groups to make hard one being able to rule others or some unite against others and they choose a language no-one use (Latin) as a good symbol of "we are unite, but we are all different and together"...

IMVHO this model is not accepted by most countries is because anyone like or dream power and in this model there is no absolute power by anyone so any decision need to be discussed and lobby can't do that much. Oh, it's not perfect, we see recent schizophrenic referendums rows, sure Swiss is not poor anymore, the poorest mercenaries of big European powers of the past, so they can count on being a safe harbor for anyone else etc. BUT try to compare Swiss to Lebanon (the ex-Middle-est Swiss almost anybody forgot)...

As you described Switzerland I immediately thought of Lebanon. Lebanon has the added complication of extraordinary interest of its two neighbors in Lebanon's internal affairs. In your opinion, could that be the difference between the successful Swiss implementation and the largely failing Lebanese implementation?

Very easy:

One is founded on libertarian ideals. The other one is founded on state-mandated pluricultural sectarianism.

In switzerland, plurality is represented via multiple presidents and they can represent any canton.

In lebanon, plurality is state-mandated: must have a president that is of X religion. A prime minister of Y religion. This is "representative".

The swiss has very strong traditions on union out of necessity (to face external threat).

Lebanon has no tradition of unity, it is a state unified effectively out of fear (and a bastard child of french palestinian mandate).

The swiss culture of unity is long: they worked 800+ years to establish their union and it was carefully balanced over many iterations of conflict, even internal ones.

Lebanese culture of unity is very weak. They basically were friendly with all neighbors seeking to influence internal policy. For example, all public works depend on a sponsor (saudi, qatar etc), to fund the project. Money buys influence. Imagine if FL depended on Venezuelan treasure to build roads. Very weak internal unity.

Lebanon was only the switzerland of the middle east because it was the most free of countries in the region. But the regional bar is very low. As it turns out, that only gets you so far.

And time ran out for lebanon... a while back:

When? I think Black september sealed the fate of lebanon. They had no internal unity to reject the palestinian refugees like Jordan did (via authoritarian methods). That permanently and irrevocably set them on the path they are today.

In summary, calling lebanon the switzerland of the middle east is a romantic idea for the lebanese that lived thru a somewhat prosperous but short time period of 15 or so years. Nothing suggested it could be long lasting. It was always an empty vessel. A student that cheats on every exam, will eventually get caught.

The rest as they say, is history

  > They basically were friendly with all neighbors seeking to influence
  > internal policy. For example, all public works depend on a
  > sponsor (saudi, qatar etc), to fund the project.

I had no idea! Was this because they were unable to collect taxes from the populace? Where could I read more.

  > When? I think Black september sealed the fate of lebanon. They had no internal
  > unity to reject the palestinian refugees like Jordan did (via authoritarian methods).

Was there no way to handle the palestinian refugees without authoritarian methods? Honest naive question, most people who voice an opinion on the subject seem to have extremely one-sided and narrow viewpoints, your comment demonstrates otherwise. I would appreciate a candid opinion from someone who sees the larger picture.

>>>>I had no idea! Was this because they were unable to collect taxes from the populace? Where could I read more

I don't know where this practice comes from or how long has it been around.

I do know however the public works bidding is a cartel, and there is so much corruption at all levels, from deputies to private enterprise, that it would make Brazil's petrobras corruption scandal (lava jato) look minor in comparison.

>>>>Was there no way to handle the palestinian refugees without authoritarian methods?

Im not sure. Displaced populations had to go live somewhere. The palestinian issue is rare because they were forced to leave, which is atypical for "total war" conflict.

In total war conflicts, the result is winner takes land with resources, and loser state is (a) integrated into larger empire, with either assimilation, or massive civilian casualties, or (b) else loser state is left with minor pop and land.

With Palestine, there was no leftover "loser" state, there were no resources changing hands, and no civilian wipeout.

I dont know of any democratic country succesfully managing refugees at that scale. Total war is not rare historically, what is rare is democratic states existing at the time total war was still prevalent.

The question is interesting. Id like to give it more thought.

That being said, history tends to put everyone in their place. Jordan may still implode due to royal malfeasance, but lebanon already did.

  > Im not sure. Displaced populations had to go live somewhere.

This is the crux of the issue. Jordan was a strong nation that was able to protect its national identity and existing citizens by subjugating the refugees. Even today, two out of every three people in Jordan are descendants of those displaced in 1948-1949. We might not like what Jordan did to those people, but protecting its citizens is quite the major function of government, is it not?

Of course I am referring to the period up until 1967. The PLO actions after 1967 changed the dynamics of the situation and any rubric for judging policy in the period before that year is not valid for judging policy in the period after that year.

"Was there no way to handle the palestinian refugees without authoritarian methods? "

That is one if the ongoing big questions worldwide, isn't it?

The EU solves it by paying Erdogan and co. to do most of the dirty work of keeping them away.

There is no nice way, to turn someone desperate away. You can either integrate them well, or you push them out.

Or you can work towards solutions, that bring prosperity to the poor, exploited areas of the world. Ending wars would be a good start.

  > You can either integrate them well, or you push them out.

But what is "integration" when for every one of _your_ citizens, _two_ refugees are coming. At that scale one is not integrating the refugees, rather, one is simply giving the country to the refugees.

Of course, those refugees had to go live _somewhere_. The Egyptians rounded them up into Gaza, stuffing 250,000 people into land that could support 60,000 and already had over 100,000. That is why there are no real refugee camps in Egypt today, and why Egypt refused to take Gaza back after 1956.

>>>>>Was there no way to handle the palestinian refugees without authoritarian methods? "

Actually I will take a stab at the question.

I think Switzerland is a decent example of how to handle refugees while still remaining a free country.

In fact, Switzerland offers a glimpse of a solution: the suisse model of citizenship the municipal level.

In Switzerland, each canton makes its own rules for naturalization. Some cantons have adhoc policies, and refuse granting citizenship for almost any reason. [1].

Now, expand that thesis: - if cantons also had sovereign control of their borders (which they did, during the old confederacy) they could manage refugee crisis while retaining democratic ideals.

https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2017/01/sw...

To what quantity of refugees does that scale?

Being able to turn away _all_ refugees is a luxury that some non-Mediterranean European countries have because there is a buffer state before the refuge is actually on your land. But when the refugees are flooding over your border at the rate of 2 refugees for every 1 of your citizens, how effective such a policy in practice?

>>>>There is no nice way, to turn someone desperate away. You can either integrate them well, or you push them out.

Historically, there was a 3rd and even 4th option. Both are extremely antihuman (genocide, slavery) but they were options nonetheless.

And of course there is the 5th, often applied solution of putting them in enclosed temporary camps, that turn permanent, if the conflict never gets solved.

And personally I like the swiss approach, too.

It's hard for me to have tangible opinion on something as complicated as the Middle-east but surely part of the causes are exogenous, at what level and mechanism I can't tell. Surely another relevant part was and still is food: Swiss needs import, but for being well, in mere self-sufficiency they can survive, Lebanon can't, it import I think nearly all foods they needs and that's a big issue. Surely energy production is another: Swiss have much hydro and was able to develop a certain level of nuclear, Lebanon have nothing of them. Again a big tie that allow foreign countries to interfere much.

I do not prize Swiss at a whole, I'm talking just in terms of defense and Democracy...

Very interesting, thank you. I did not realize that Lebanon must import so much food. They have a very fertile country, possibly the most fertile percentagewise in the Middle East, I wonder why they must import so much food.

I don't know the details, but for instance, from a quick search

https://www.weeportal-lb.org/news/lebanon-imports-85-its-foo...

https://www.thenationalnews.com/mena/lebanon/2022/03/11/leba...

https://asiatimes.com/2022/01/russia-ukraine-war-could-cause...

I suppose they have big water issues due to constant droughts and bad irrigation systems, perhaps hyper-dense population and constant war-alike status also impact much but...

And do not undervalue the energy part, pumps for instance can run on p.v. but most tractors, farm equipment run on diesel, witch is not produced locally and cost money. Food supply chain/transformation industry need energy, sometimes in important quantities to keep foods cold or to lyophilize them etc.

Energy does not make foods alone, but it's an important piece of the game.

Thank you.

In fact, I did not consider the energy part. I am aware that much Lebanese agriculture, at least in the south, is still very manual.

Nitpick: Calvin was mostly active in Geneva, in the French speaking part. The most important exponent of the Reformation in Zurich was Zwingli. And the (German speaking) cantons in Central Switzerland that “founded” Switzerland are to this day mostly Catholic.

If people do split into factions, they have to settle somehow. Of course, hopefully peacefully. Forcing society to stay coherent against it's will sounds a we... authoritarian?

Powers are not balanced in Switzerland. The reason most modern countries stopped conscription is because infantrymen are far less useful than they used to be in combats - they remain useful if you want to control the place you have invaded but are not that useful to do the actual invading. Advanced weaponry is just too efficient: artillery, helicopters, planes, drones, missiles.

Switzerland is not even really trying to defend itself. The chief reason it’s safe is because it’s surrounded by countries with an actual army. They rely on France for part of their air defence.

I think they're wrong about modern Switzerland, but they raise an issue that's crossed my mind occasionally: that Athenian democracy followed the emergence of the phalanx, a technology that favored the use of large, non-specialized citizen armies, and that our current military technology is the polar opposite of that.

It's the opposite.

Phalanxes are the kind of thing where a break in coordination by any one man results you all getting rekt. The conflict between the Greeks and the Persians is a pretty good example of what happens when you have specialized men against a much larger force of levied up men of dubious quality. The Greeks won.

I probably shouldn't have used the word "non-specialized." I mean that in comparison with the armies of early Iron Age Greece the hoplite army of democratic Athens was relatively non-hierarchical, without such heavy dependence on a class of professional, full-time soldiers. (The author of this article compares that earlier type of combat to the sort of battle waged by indigenous New Guineans: https://www.ancientworldmagazine.com/articles/greek-warfare-... ).

Less than two years ago, the Swiss air force, which is there for intercepting air space incursions had business hours [0].

[0] https://www.aerotime.aero/articles/26815-no-more-office-hour...

Which of the weapons you mentioned has capability to occupy ground? I think Ukraine taught us that 2k soldiers in a factory area can delay a much more expensive army for months or until they run out of food/ammo. Russian needed a million infantry men to have a chance of occupying UKraine. Afghanistan collapsed by mere infantry in a few weeks, only because they could not move fast enough. If one wants to occupy and keep land in today’s nationalist states, swarming is still the most viable proposition.

> most modern countries stopped conscription is because infantrymen are far less useful than they used to be in combats

The fallacy here is that conscripts == infantry, when frontline troops account for a minority of the whole force. Sweden had to overturn their decision to abolish conscription in less than a decade.

Hem, Swiss do have conscription, they only relaxed them a bit, for instance not allowing anymore ammo at home, just weapons, anyone can buy ammo of course but classic sealed packages for the service use only aren't anymore a thing.

Mandatory bunkers and scattered cornerstones are not mandatory anymore either, but still shelters must be provided by the public, mandatory long-lasting food supply are there etc

Mined roads are far less mined than before, but still there. So I think Swiss STILL care it's defense. Also my point is about protecting against foreign invasions instead of build armies to invade other countries because that's the point of peace.

If we want peace dialogue is mandatory and a good weapon aside help well, si vis pacem para bellum, BUT being MUCH more able to defend instead of offend is a good stability key.

Not do invading?

Long-running conscription could work with advanced tech. Not 1-year-to-train-and-then-back-to-civilian-life. But train-and-then-keep-training-till-40+.

Someone will always go to war outside of their borders.

This model works if you've got Team America: World Police keeping sea lanes of communication open and other things that require power projection. If Team America isn't doing it, someone else will step in. Like China.

Giving the state a monopoly on weapons manufacturing seems like a road to serfdom, exactly the opposite of maintaining a Democracy. One of the critical steps to every dictatorship is disarming the population.

Popular conscription is nothing else but slavery. And sexist one, most of the time.

Any society without conscription is a society of human livestock, because they are defended by men not their compatriots, but their shepherds.

i wonder how countries with mandatory military service deal with gun control for people after their mandatory military service is over.

During military service, you're typically not home with service weapons. You're stationed wherever you're receiving training, and that's where weapons remain.

The army in Switzerland does exactly this. They can mobilize faster with the guns and ammo at home.

I'm not Swiss, but a quick peruse of Wikipedia says that this is no longer the case except for ~ 2,000 specialist militia members at any given time - the Swiss keep their militia-issued firearms in the home but ammunition is kept in government armouries.

You can purchase your militia firearm after your service has ended but it must be converted to semi-automatic and you have to apply for a permit - a semi-automatic firearm would fall under the "may-issue" permits which requires justification for why you need said firearm, and it seems that ammunition falls under the same rules. It'd be great if a Swiss person could chime in since I don't know anything more than what I've gleaned from this article.

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firearms_regulation_in_Switzer...

That (having ammunition at home, or not, for various parts of their forces) sounds like a detail which would be relatively easy to dial up or down, depending on the Swiss Dept. of Defense's current assessment of the threat level...

Up until recently (here's an article from 2014 [1]), the Swiss still had explosives near major bridges just in case of attack. They seem to have taken home defense rather seriously in more than one way.

"Until now, hundreds of key roads and bridges across Switzerland have held stores of explosives for use in the event of invasion. The policy was developed during the Cold War, because of fears of an attack by Warsaw Pact countries, eight communist states of Central and Eastern Europe." [1]https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/cold-war-defence_army-to-find-a...

They have their weapons at home, but not anymore the ammunition.

I wonder when they changed it. Haven't really paid attention to guns etc in a while

What is the point of keeping the weapons then? Is it easy to buy your own ammunition?

The point is, not everyone can start a amok run at any time, but in case of mobilisation, it makes logistics much easier.

That is not the case in Israel. Soldiers on leave would typically have their personal weapon ( assault rifle ) with them.

When you are in army, army rules apply to you. When you are at home, civilian rules apply to you. Which may mean that you are not allowed to have guns or it may mean there are special regulations.

Sometimes, your ability to have gun is dependent also on you finishing the service - tho I think that is mostly to stop people from dodging the draft. (In Iran, you are not allowed to have passport without military service. They can deny you driver's license too.)

Service weapons are, obviously, returned. Privte ones are, obviously, not used during service. In Switzerland for example service weapons can br stored at home.

Edit: Spelling

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