John McPhee’s classic study of the Swiss Army “La Place de la Concorde Suisse” is a good read.

The Amazon blurb provides a good introduction to the subject:

Anyone who has ever traveled in Switzerland cannot help but to have remarked upon the overwhelming tranquility of the country. But this tranquility is illusory. As John McPhee writes … , “there is scarcely a scene in Switzerland that is not ready to erupt in fire to repel an invasive war.” With a population smaller than New Jersey’s, Switzerland has a standing army of 650,000 ready to be mobilized in less than 48 hours. The Swiss Army, known in this country chiefly for its little red pocketknives, is so quietly efficient at the arts of war that the Israelis carefully patterned their own military on the Swiss model. …

The roots of the concept that a Republic, if it is to retain its freedom, must be defended by an army of its citizens go back to the Roman Republic.

Switzerland and Israel adopted the citizen army not merely from strategic necessity, although both countries have long been menaced by hostile neighbors (the Swiss less so in the second half of the XX century), but, also, out of a conscious desire to achieve the republican ideal.

This ideal is not a stranger to the United States. The Founders were deeply familiar with classical Rome and admired it intensely as the architecture of their capital attests. 10 U.S.C. Sec. 311 says:

(a) The militia of the United States consists of all able-bodied males at least 17 years of age and … under 45 years of age who are, or who have made a declaration of intention to become, citizens of the United States and of female citizens of the United States who are members of the National Guard.

This law is descended from one passed by the first Congress under the Constitution.

Could countries bordering the bear’s den adopt this model? I do not see a material barrier. Both Israel and Switzerland were poor when they first adopted it. AK-47s are dirt cheap. Training takes time, but poor farmers often have long stretches of down time in the winter. It is the concept that is needed.

Paid for with what?

They did what they could, and more importantly, tried to get a big friend to protect them, which is the best possible strategy, and it looks like it is now going to happen.

Israel’s nuclear weapons did not deter the attack by Egypt and Syria in 1973. Their armies would have advanced into Israel if they could have, and in Syria’s case almost did. Before 1973 Israel would have ended up like Georgia, or worse, if it didn’t create (and pay for) an exceptionally powerful military capability relative to its population.

The Swiss promised publicly a fight to the death if they were invaded. They were not invaded. We didn’t invade Japan either.

Germany backs Georgia’s NATO bid. I am shocked. I believed the Germans were neutralized by their oil and gas needs, and would in effect support Russia in whatever it did rather than risk any disruption to their economy.

Angela Merkel actually has some courage. I underestimated her.

I am not sure it actually makes practical sense for NATO to enlist Georgia, and thus give it a security guarantee. But it is certainly not the craven, compliant course I expected from Germany.

A Panzer command … offered the best opportunity to implement the synergy between technology and vitalism Rommel’s experience [in World War I] had convinced him was the key to waging modern war at any level. Weapons by themselves were cold iron. Courage by itself was wasted sacrifice. The challenge lay in bringing the two together: recognizing and creating situations wreh warrior qualities were multiplied by speed and firepower to produce irrestible shock.

It is always a matter of will + means.

But it is also a matter of understanding the type of war you are in. For Georgia, they tried to do my option 1, get a big friend, which they did not get to the degree they needed, because the NATO countries balked, in time to deter Russia. The presence of American personnel in Georgia as “humanitarian relief” is in fact a NATO-like tripwire, to warn off the Russians. If they actually kill off a bunch of Americans by continuing their attacks, they will piss off a large part of the US public. That may have some deterrant effect.

2. Switzerland is exactly my case 4. It is also Pakistan v. India (the Paks plan to take to the hills if India ever overran them; though now that threat is gone since they have nukes) and several other cases.

3. I don’t disagree with the premise that countries need to defend themselves. Georgia has spent a great deal of effort on its military, for a small country, as its battlefield performancs shows. So, to the extent Carolne Glick says they did not, or derives any lessons from this nonexistent failure, she is talking nonsense.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/ukraine/2570285/Ukraine-offers-satellite-defence-co-operation-with-Europe-and-US.html

It will be interesting (like a car crash) to watch as Russia continues to poke and prod its European and Asian neighbors. Many, most, all of them (except China) violate both tenets of Glick’s thesis: little or no military and little or no resolve to use it.

The simple fact is that the US is not going to war with Russia over Georgia.

Glick writes from an Israeli perspective, and it seems to me that Israel’s history refutes your assertions about small countries. Small countries usually lose against big countries, but not always. Israel won its wars against bigger countries with bigger armies by outfighting them, not because it had (during the later wars) nuclear weapons. It was extremely costly to Israel to do this, both in lives lost and in the diversion of a huge proportion of national resources to defense, but the Israelis decided they had no choice. Of course they were right.

Another counterexample to your assertions is Switzerland, which won by successfully deterring invasion by Nazi Germany.

Georgia might not have prevailed against Russia, but it might have been able to deter attack by investing much more in national defense. It would have been costly to do this, it would have taken years and it might not have been successful ultimately, but in hindsight any measures Georgia could take to strengthen its defenses would have been less costly than the defeat that actually happened. A small country that has hostile neighbors and is determined to survive has no choice but to build a large military and arm itself to the teeth, and this is Glick’s central point.

The Georgians were not going to win a conventional war against Russia under any circumstances. Small countries lose conventional wars to large ones. Small countries that are menaced by large ones have four options. (1) Get a strong friend to promise to protect you, (2) allow yourself to be pushed around or even outright annexed, or (3) get nuclear weapons, (4) be prepared to fight a conventional war, lose, and turn it into a guerilla struggle. Georgia tried to do 1, but we were not willing to go that far, and they weren’t willing to do 2 and 3 was apparently beyond their capacity and incompatible with attempting to do 1. Israel has done 1 and 3. Iran is trying to do 3 and could probably do 4.

None of this has anything to do with whether I “approve” of what Russia did. I don’t. The Russians are, as usual, being evil. The Georgians, on the other hand, were irresponsible.

http://www.strategypage.com/htmw/htada/articles/20080814.aspx

Apologies to those who have already seen it. Other reports say that technologically Georgia is well ahead of Russia (whatever happened to all that money the Russian government has been spending on the military?) but, obviously enough, it lacks numbers. There is also a report that the army was ordered to retreat, which would indicate – and I can put it no stronger than that, as it is just a report – that the high command has some kind of a plan in mind. But don’t jump on me if that turns out to be wrong. Also, there is the unanswered question of the 2,000 troops airlifted out of Iraq. I have not heard where they are. Perhaps, someone else knows.

Tatyana is right, Lex. The Americans have not been training the Georgian forces for long.

As for who started it, that is rather a convoluted question – almost as convoluted as to who the Ossetians might be. Yes, Saakashvili ordered the most recent attack on South Ossetia but there had been a lot of attacks on Georgia out of that region and on Georgian villages by Ossetians. There have also been reports of some bombing and of Russian planes buzzing Georgian targets. This has been going on for some time. The best way of describing Russian activity is controlled provocation that, unfortunately, the Georgians fell for. On the other hand, it was going to happen some time and, clearly, the Russians were prepared, what with those passports and the troops so conveniently to hand.