Can a state exist without a military in an increasingly divided and heavily militarized world?  The answer is “yes.” 

Twenty-one sovereign countries – one-ninth of the United Nations’ roster – do not maintain standing armies.  Many of them are small island states in the Caribbean and the South Pacific and the majority chose not to create armed forces upon attaining independence.  Demilitarization, the act of abolishing an extant army, occurs much more infrequently, because it clashes with the interests of powerful organizations, especially the armed forces themselves. Some European mini states – Andorra, Liechtenstein, Monaco – scrapped their armies centuries ago.  But two Central American countries, Costa Rica and Panama, and two small Caribbean Island nations, Dominica and Grenada, dispensed with their militaries after World War II. 

Armyless states share some important commonalities: (1) the decision to demilitarize or not to have an army always follows a pivotal moment (military coup, foreign invasion, reaching independence) in history; (2) they have bilateral security arrangements and/or an alliance with a regional hegemon; (3) they have not been attacked or invaded; (4) they maintain public safety and border security organizations; (5) they are consolidated democracies; and (6) they are more prosperous and spend more on healthcare, education, and socioeconomic development than their neighbors with armed forces.  While States without Armies engages all twenty-one demilitarized states, it focuses on the experiences of Costa Rica, Iceland, Mauritius, Panama, and the Solomon Islands.

About the Speaker
Zoltan Barany is the Frank C. Erwin Professor of Government at the University of Texas where he has been a faculty member since 1991.  He is a student of military politics and sociology and the author of Armies of Arabia: Military Politics and Effectiveness in the Gulf (Oxford, 2021), How Armies Respond to Revolutions and Why (Princeton, 2016), The Soldier and the Changing State: Building Democratic Armies in Africa, Asia, Europe, and the Americas (Princeton, 2012), and other books.  Barany held visiting and research appointments at CSIS, the Hoover Institution, the universities of Oxford and Edinburgh in the UK, and the East-West Center in Honolulu.  He was elected to a Life Membership in the Council on Foreign Relations in 2007.

Host
Reppy Institute for Peace and Conflict Studies