I.

Introduction

Army, military land forces of a nation, assembled, drilled, disciplined, and equipped for offensive and defensive manoeuvres in warfare. The term may refer to the entire body of military personnel in a nation, or to a specific unit under a military commander. In peacetime an army can sometimes be called upon to provide emergency aid for civilians.

The composition of armies often reflects the attitudes towards war of the civilizations and societies they represent. In ancient Greece, for example, men up to the age of 60 were expected to serve in the army; more importance was attached to military than to civil office. In ancient Rome, the citizen-soldier army of the Republic changed to a professional force as social conditions changed and the Republic gave way to the Empire.

For conquest of territory, an army may invade using tanks, with planes and artillery in support, helicopter forces, and mechanized infantry. Some army units are trained for defence only, as infantry, artillery fortifications, and mobile units. An army can also be used to control or put down civilian unrest in its own or other countries, as when Soviet troops put down the 1956 Hungarian uprising, as when British troops were deployed in Northern Ireland in the late 1960s; and as seen, in a situation of all-out war in the Russian Army’s action against the revolt in Chechnya in 1995.

The world’s biggest army is the Chinese army; in 2002 it comprised 2 million personnel, of whom almost 1.3 million were conscripts, and was supported by a national militia of some 12 million and by a security force of some 800,000. Other significant armies include those of India, Russia, and the United States. However, an army’s striking power is not only dependent on its size, but also on the efficiency of its weapons.