Not until the Second World War did the United States establish what would become a standing army.
The East India Company controlled a standing army of some 200, 000 men, more than most European states.
"The Founding Fathers were afraid of a standing army, " explains Guthman.
The trouble is not the troops themselves: the force is not a standing army, waiting for its orders in barracks in Brussels, but an ad hoc coalition of suitable components.
Less territory, for example, means less mobilization time, which may necessitate a larger standing army and less reliance on reserves.
But in any case the Pakistani military is a very strong military - it has a half a million standing army.
Readers should remember that it is the UN member states that opt not to have a standing UN army, forcing the organization to rely on 'volunteer' Troop Contributing Countries, who are paid by the UN for their efforts.
Pentagon policymakers pulled the plug on the Joint Tactical Radio System earlier this year, standing up a new Army-led organization and parceling out the various pieces to the services that will ultimately use the radios.
While warning (presciently) that populism would breed demagoguery and tyranny, Hamilton opposed slavery (establishing the New York Manumission Society), founded a school to educate frontier Indians (now Hamilton College), launched the Bank of New York (1784), argued for a permanent defense (standing army), and extolled the virtue and productiveness of commerce, industry, and finance.
FORBES: Honoring Alexander Hamilton, The Great American Revolutionary
France, sensing an opportunity to push on with its aim of creating an EU standing army, wants to deploy a rapid-reaction force of some 1, 500 European troops but is so far being blocked by Germany.
Many followers in al-Sadr's Mehdi Army militia have heeded a long-standing cease-fire, but some rogue forces are thought to be involved in violence.
But some Pentagon officials portrayed the evaluation as a dramatic effort by the Army to highlight long-standing concerns and lobby for more money.
CNN: Bush refuses to back down on military readiness assertion
That could make for a bleak season for the thousands of Salvation Army Santas standing out in the cold and asking for quarters and dimes for the needy.
Some used to argue that now America has the biggest standing army the world has ever known it was a little bit redundant.
But Henry was no match for the French king, who introduced France's first standing army in 1445, and ultimately crushed the overstretched English within a little over two years.
ECONOMIST: England's war with France: Once more unto the breach | The
Whilst standing by the roadside with his medium format camera in hand, a British Army patrol approached him and asked what he was doing, whilst making it clear he should take no more pictures.
This week, Iraqi state television aired images of an Iraqi general in Basra standing by a seized cache of rockets, which he said could have been supplied only by Iran's army.
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