Military

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

A military or miltary force (n, from Latin militarius, miles "soldier") is a collective of men, machines and equipment that form an army. While it can refer to any armed force, it generally refers to a permanent, professional force of soldiers or guerrillas—trained exclusively for the purpose of warfare. The doctrine that asserts the primacy of a military within a society is called militarism.

While "military" concerns all related armed forces, is has often been distinct from a militia or a levy, which are temporary forces—citizen soldiers with less training, who may be 'called up' from the population when a nation mobilizes for total war, or to defend against invasion. As an adjective, "military" is a descriptive property of things related to a military—soldiers and warfare. In formal British English, "military" as an adjective refers more particularly to matters relating to an army, as opposed to the naval and air force matters of the other two services: an example of this usage is here: [1].

Military "strength" is a term that describes a quantification or reference to a nation's standing military forces or the capacity for fulfillment of that military's role. For example, the military strength of a given country could be interpreted as the number of individuals in its armed forces, the destructive potential of its arsenal, or both.

Table of contents

1 Early militaries
2 United States military services
3 Military of the United Kingdom
4 See also

Early militaries

United States military services

Main article: Military of the United States.