Militias Essay ⋆ Political Science Essay Examples ⋆ EssayEmpire

Although its meaning has varied over time, customary definitions of the term militia typically describe an armed force composed of nonprofessional soldiers tasked with protecting a community during times of crisis. Traditional militias either (1) support a professional army in the midst of war, or (2) act alone against a foreign invader. In recent times, however, some militias—especially those found in the United States—have come to espouse doctrines revolving around perceived internal security threats, including those seen as emanating from local and national authorities. Moreover, contemporary accounts of nonstate armed groups increasingly use the term militia to describe what some perceive as insurgent or terrorist groups. Thus an understanding of militias requires an appreciation of their historical purposes and their current manifestation in the twenty-first century.

For over two thousand years, militias have been a central pillar of community security. For most of that time, militias consisted of private citizens whose regular social obligations were augmented by military training and the perennial requirements of defending against invaders as well as conducting preemptive and punitive military expeditions. In addition to keeping their communities free from external subjugations, militia members often benefited from this arrangement via the booty and profit extracted from a vanquished foe.

In addition to territorial defense, militias have also been used to build empires, and, in some cases, they have consisted of fighters who were not ethnically or religiously similar to the larger military structure they were subsumed under. Both of these historical features of militias can be found in the Muslim Ummayad Caliphate (661–750 CE)—the second of four caliphates that arose after the death of Muhammad. Although it ultimately created the world’s sixth-largest empire, early in its reign the caliphate’s wartime efforts were hampered. Such was the case because many of its professional soldiers gave allegiance to their local tribes as opposed to the caliphate as a unit. The caliphate’s eventual success in compensating for these internecine tribal-based conflicts was only achieved by creating ranks of non-Arab and non-Muslim militias.

More recently, militias have been used to gain independence from colonial powers as well as a means to safeguard state expansion into recently acquired territories. An example par excellence of these characteristics can be found in the history of the United States. Militias were used to extricate the North American colonists from British rule in the late eighteenth century. Distrustful of standing armies, the newly founded United States then used militias as a means to combat Native Americans and foreign powers as the new nation expanded territorially. When facing military defeat, states have also endeavored to use militias as a means of creating a stalemate. Nazi Germany, for example, unsuccessfully sought to use its militia—the Volkssturm—to stall Russian and Allied forces by transforming every city and village in Germany into a fortress, thus contributing to a military standoff.

There is considerable debate regarding the role of militias in contemporary U.S. society. Influential academics and private watch groups are almost unanimous in their belief that militia movements are a profound danger to social order. In addition, contemporary militias in the United States are perceived by most observers as being composed of not only dangerous but also deviant individuals with conspiracy-oriented ideologies. In contrast, defenders of U.S. militias often emphasize that creation of nonstate militias is a politically expressive conveyance of their First Amendment rights to freedom of speech and association. Moreover, such advocates often emphasize that militias serve as safeguards against perceived governmental trespass of individual rights. In defending U.S. militias, proponents also claim to be exercising their Second Amendment rights under their strict interpretation of this amendment: “A well-regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”

Finally, since the end of the cold war, nonstate armed groups have proliferated globally. Many of these groups—such as militants active in Indian Kashmir, Iraq, Nepal, and Pakistan—are often called militias. While they sometimes possess many of the attributes traditionally associated with militias— nonprofessional soldiers providing security in an area devoid of state control—these groups are perceived by many to be better described as terrorist or insurgent in nature.

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