Militarism

Militarism is the belief or the desire of a government or a people that a state should maintain a strong military capability and to use it aggressively to expand national interests and/or values.

During the period of the Weimar Republic (1918–1933), the 1920 Kapp Putsch, an attempted coup d'état against the republican government, was launched by disaffected members of the armed forces.

The Kashmiri insurgency and recent events including the Kargil War against Pakistan, assured that the Indian government remained committed to military expansion.

This was evident in 15th-century Japan's Sengoku period or Age of Warring States, where powerful samurai warlords (daimyōs) played a significant role in Japanese politics.

It is exemplified by the 1882 Imperial Rescript to Soldiers and Sailors, which called for all members of the armed forces to have an absolute personal loyalty to the Emperor.

In 1936, this phenomenon resulted in the February 26 Incident, in which junior officers attempted a coup d'état and killed leading members of the Japanese government.

In the 1930s, the Great Depression damaged Japan's economy and gave radical elements within the Japanese military the chance to realize their ambitions of conquering all of Asia.

In 1940, Japan entered into an alliance with Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy, two similarly militaristic states in Europe, and advanced out of China and into Southeast Asia.

In the 19th century during the Philippine Revolution, Andrés Bonifacio founded the Katipunan, a revolutionary organization against Spain at the Cry of Pugad Lawin.

During Independence, the President General Emilio Aguinaldo established the Magdalo, a faction separate from Katipunan, and he declared the revolutionary government in the constitution of the First Philippine Republic.

Through the Imperial era, Russia continued on her quest for territorial expansion into Siberia, Caucasus and into Eastern Europe, eventually conquering the majority of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.

The end of imperial rule in 1917 meant the loss of some territory following the treaty of Brest-Litovsk, but much of it was quickly reconquered by the Soviet Union later on, including events such as the partition of Poland and reconquest of the Baltic states in the late 1930s and ‘40s.

[18] The Associated Press reported that some parents were shocked by the militaristic nature of the Kremlin-promoted Important Conversations lessons, with some comparing them to the "patriotic education" of the former Soviet Union.

[20] UK Chief of Defence Staff Admiral Tony Radakin said that "the last time we saw these levels was at the end of the Cold War and the collapse of the Soviet Union.

It was the military, after all, who led the nation through the War of Liberation (1919–1923) and saved the motherland.The first military coup in the history of the republic was on 27 May 1960, which resulted in the hanging of PM Adnan Menderes and 2 ministers, and a new constitution was introduced, creating a Constitutional Court to vet the legislation passed by parliament, and a military-dominated National Security Council to oversee the government affairs similar to the politburo in the Soviet Union.

[22] The second military coup took place on 12 March 1971, this time only forcing the government to resign and installing a cabinet of technocrats and bureaucrats without dissolving the parliament.

The constitutional referendums in 2010 and 2017 have changed the composition and role of the National Security Council, and placed the armed forces under the control of civilian government.

This reform was the result of a conflict between Neo-Hamiltonian Republicans and Jeffersonian-Jacksonian Democrats over the proper administration of the state and direction of its foreign policy.

The conflict pitted proponents of professionalism, based on business management principles, against those favoring more local control in the hands of laymen and political appointees.

The outcome of this struggle, including a more professional federal civil service and a strengthened presidency and executive branch, made a more expansionist foreign policy possible.

The enlargement of the U.S. Army for the Spanish–American War was considered essential to the occupation and control of the new territories acquired from Spain in its defeat (Guam, the Philippines, Puerto Rico, and Cuba).

Retired Major General Smedley Butler, who was at the time of his death the most decorated Marine, spoke strongly against what he considered to be trends toward fascism and militarism.

Butler briefed Congress on what he described as a Business Plot for a military coup, for which he had been suggested as leader; the matter was partially corroborated, but the real threat has been disputed.

Dwight D. Eisenhower, a retired top military commander elected as a civilian president, warned, as he was leaving office, of the development of a military–industrial complex.

[26] In the Cold War, there emerged many civilian academics and industrial researchers, such as Henry Kissinger and Herman Kahn, who had significant input into the use of military force.

The complexities of nuclear strategy and the debates surrounding them helped produce a new group of 'defense intellectuals' and think tanks, such as the Rand Corporation (where Kahn, among others, worked).

[32] Much of the modern political movement behind the Fifth Republic of Venezuela, ruled by the Bolivarian government established by Hugo Chávez, was built on the following of Bolívar and such militaristic ideals.