ABSTRACT
The first duty of the sovereign, that of protecting the society from violence and invasion of other independent societies, can be performed only with a military force. Military development is an ongoing process, one that can be measured only in a relative manner. Armed forces are never totally developed or underdeveloped; instead, they are found adequate or inadequate for deterring credible threats to the security of a nation and for defending its interests when such deterrence fails. Although to students of defense planning military development would intuitively appear to be a part of the overall process of national development, it is frequently one of the most misunderstood phenomena associated with the nation-state. In the newly independent, multiethnic states of the developing world, soldiers rapidly became embroiled in domestic politics, unlike their counterparts in the developed world. The literature of militarism is quite extensive. The chapter also presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in this book.
