Not until the Second World War did the United States establish what would become a standing army.
The East India Company controlled a standing army of some 200, 000 men, more than most European states.
Early Americans considered a standing army a permanent army kept even in times of peace to be a form of tyranny.
The United States, a nation founded on opposition to a standing army, is now a nation engaged in a standing war.
"The Founding Fathers were afraid of a standing army, " explains Guthman.
Since one of their worries was the prospect of a standing army a permanent army Madison drafted an amendment guaranteeing the people the right to form a militia.
The trouble is not the troops themselves: the force is not a standing army, waiting for its orders in barracks in Brussels, but an ad hoc coalition of suitable components.
Both Jefferson and James Madison, the Father of the Constitution, also knew that their government would never fear a people without guns, and they understood as well that the greatest threat to liberty was not foreign invasion or domestic unrest but rather a standing army and a militarized police force without fear of the people and capable of inflicting tyranny upon the people.
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"A powerful standing army that does not have the opportunity to question and dissent indeed threatens the existence of a democratic society, " he said.
KDP's zone, mountain guerrillas are being trained to become soldiers in a regular standing army.
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Less territory, for example, means less mobilization time, which may necessitate a larger standing army and less reliance on reserves.
But in any case the Pakistani military is a very strong military - it has a half a million standing army.
Readers should remember that it is the UN member states that opt not to have a standing UN army, forcing the organization to rely on 'volunteer' Troop Contributing Countries, who are paid by the UN for their efforts.
Pentagon policymakers pulled the plug on the Joint Tactical Radio System earlier this year, standing up a new Army-led organization and parceling out the various pieces to the services that will ultimately use the radios.
While warning (presciently) that populism would breed demagoguery and tyranny, Hamilton opposed slavery (establishing the New York Manumission Society), founded a school to educate frontier Indians (now Hamilton College), launched the Bank of New York (1784), argued for a permanent defense (standing army), and extolled the virtue and productiveness of commerce, industry, and finance.
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France, sensing an opportunity to push on with its aim of creating an EU standing army, wants to deploy a rapid-reaction force of some 1, 500 European troops but is so far being blocked by Germany.
Many followers in al-Sadr's Mehdi Army militia have heeded a long-standing cease-fire, but some rogue forces are thought to be involved in violence.
Cooler heads, General Basbug among them, know that overturning a popular government could destroy the army's popular standing.
But some Pentagon officials portrayed the evaluation as a dramatic effort by the Army to highlight long-standing concerns and lobby for more money.
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That could make for a bleak season for the thousands of Salvation Army Santas standing out in the cold and asking for quarters and dimes for the needy.
The army's standing has been damaged by a slew of leaked documents detailing plans to foment chaos and topple the government.
Some used to argue that now America has the biggest standing army the world has ever known it was a little bit redundant.
But Henry was no match for the French king, who introduced France's first standing army in 1445, and ultimately crushed the overstretched English within a little over two years.
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Whilst standing by the roadside with his medium format camera in hand, a British Army patrol approached him and asked what he was doing, whilst making it clear he should take no more pictures.
The Kachin Independence Army is the only major ethnic rebel group not to have agreed a long-standing ceasefire with the government.
On Wednesday, a suicide car bomber killed 47 people, most of them men standing in line to join the new Iraqi army, Iraqi medical officials said.
This week, Iraqi state television aired images of an Iraqi general in Basra standing by a seized cache of rockets, which he said could have been supplied only by Iran's army.
He says federal agents were acting more and more like an aggressive standing army against civilians, and the bombing was much like the US government when it goes after a tyrant in a foreign land.
He created a stir in 1991 with some thuggish remarks about East Timor, but that will only have enhanced his standing in the army.
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