NationStates Jolt Archive

I have a dozen and a half other countries I play as and came up with an effective if not decent method of setting aside a portion of my nations population for military purposes.

I just need to know if the percentage is too high...

Right now I am using 7.1788% of my population for military purposes.
twenty percent (1.43576%) of that fraction is my active military while the other eighty percent (5.47304%) is set aside for reserves.

The question, has been stated above... is the precentage too high?


Nereana Xenaddos, Atlantean Empress.
~aka, Sandra of California

I never get in wars. My military has slowly decreased for years due to budget cuts. Most nations use 5% but mine is 0.2%

Hm… personally I use 1.4% and that is considered high for peacetime.

5% is pretty rough even at wartime because of the cost to the economy. America currently has less then 1% in its army. Only small nations can afford 5% of their population in their military though…

I maintain a ludicrousley high % of my people in my Armed Forces, I'd say the % you use depends partially on your nation.

I maintain a ludicrousley high % of my people in my Armed Forces, I'd say the % you use depends partially on your nation.
Ah… in that case I may want to direct you to this thread (http://www.nationstates.net/forum/search.php?search_id=1204951670&start=40). I think at least part of it explains in detail why you can’t have a large percentage of people in your nations army.

A quick and basic thing to remember is that the more people in your military, the less you will have to actually earn the cash to run the military. Nations with 9% of their population in the military at peacetime will be bankrupt before they even have a war. A good military costs money, lots of money.

However, some people have their soldiers do normal jobs during peacetime and train them once every two weeks on a weekend. This is all very well, but when it comes around to actually having to go to war you will find that they aren’t nearly as well trained as those who spend all their time in training are.

Plus, who needs a stupidly large army? If you are attacking another nation, you’ve got to get them there. But if you are defending the enemy will need to have a huge advantage to be able to win anyways, because invasions are damn near impossible to do when both forces are the same, even if they have double they will have a very hard time and I would put my money on the defender.

Technology doesn’t allow you to ignore logistics or economic problems with the military; in some cases you may make it worse. This is because if you have a high tech army you generally make things more complex. It’s easy to fix a conventional weapon then it is to repair a laser.

Basically – Balance you military, have it too big and you will take people from the work force, once you take people from the work force you will start to loose money, more people in the military means it costs more. Overall effect is damaging to the economy.

I maintain a ludicrousley high % of my people in my Armed Forces, I'd say the % you use depends partially on your nation.
Ah… in that case I may want to direct you to this thread (http://www.nationstates.net/forum/search.php?search_id=1204951670&start=40). I think at least part of it explains in detail why you can’t have a large percentage of people in your nations army. Maybe I should educate you on the system that I use? then you'd understand.

Maybe I should educate you on the system that I use? then you'd understand.

Enlighten me, I'll change my opinion if it seems reasonable... I'm just repeating alot of the stuff I've heard on NS from people who study the military more then I could ever imagine.

I just find it hard to think that a nation could have alot of military personnel and yet have enough work force to have a good economy to run that military.

But I'd like to see if you can prove me wrong*, that way I can learn more.


*Not being malicious... I want to know about this system.

Maybe I should educate you on the system that I use? then you'd understand.

Enlighten me, I'll change my opinion if it seems reasonable... I'm just repeating alot of the stuff I've heard on NS from people who study the military more then I could ever imagine.

I just find it hard to think that a nation could have alot of military personnel and yet have enough work force to have a good economy to run that military.

But I'd like to see if you can prove me wrong*, that way I can learn more.


*Not being malicious... I want to know about this system. Well, I'll just need to enlighten you I guess, here's my system:

In each Kechan Province there exists a massive complex(Or series of complexes depending on the size of the Province) known as a NADE-Academy, NADE stand for National Academy of Defensive Education, each Kechan child enters a NADE-Academy at age 6(5 under Martial Law), they are allowed to have frequent visits from their relatives, at the Academy they recieve both the normal education, in addition to things like Martial Arts, Meditative Arts, Weaponry, etc... the training is extensive and thorough, also, they also wear weights on their wrists, neck, ankles, and other areas, this lasts untill te age of 18 at wich time they leave the Academy, those who are paticularly skilled become NADE-Warriors(Special Forces), or NADEICE-Commandoes(Special Forces and Computer Specialists), others may choose a Branch of the Military to serve in for 5 years, after wich time they may either sign on for a further 5 year term, or leave the main Military, all who choose the second option are enrolled in the Militia, while in the Militia they are allowed Civilian jobs as well.

Well, I'll just need to enlighten you I guess, here's my system:

In each Kechan Province there exists a massive complex(Or series of complexes depending on the size of the Province) known as a NADE-Academy, NADE stand for National Academy of Defensive Education, each Kechan child enters a NADE-Academy at age 6(5 under Martial Law), they are allowed to have frequent visits from their relatives, at the Academy they recieve both the normal education, in addition to things like Martial Arts, Meditative Arts, Weaponry, etc... the training is extensive and thorough, also, they also wear weights on their wrists, neck, ankles, and other areas, this lasts untill te age of 18 at wich time they leave the Academy, those who are paticularly skilled become NADE-Warriors(Special Forces), or NADEICE-Commandoes(Special Forces and Computer Specialists), others may choose a Branch of the Military to serve in for 5 years, after wich time they may either sign on for a further 5 year term, or leave the main Military, all who choose the second option are enrolled in the Militia, while in the Militia they are allowed Civilian jobs as well.

Ok, I've read it all word for word now but you will have to correct me if I make a wrong assumption in this reply.

From what I can tell, your people are in the military until the age of 23... that comment alone surpises me. At first I skip read this at a friends house and I thought they could leave the military all together at 18. But like I said, it seems like they don't leave until they are 23.

Wouldn't that mean that you have taken alot of people out of your workforce? I mean, people training a little until the age of 18 sounded fairly ok, but then having a compulsory mililty service of five years to boot... that would make pretty much most of your army serving at the age of 18-23, you wouldn't be able to support too many veterans who want to stay on becuase you are supporting those who have to serve, and there is alot of them.

Usless you have alot of personnel in active military roles (By this I am talking about everyday military, the people who train all the time) most of your force will be young adults that have to serve, not much room for those who want to keep serving as veterans.


Iuthian policy is that all schools are run like the military, but they don't train kids to be soldiers, instead they teach kids disapline, respect and morality as well as conventional education. The difference between us is that our kids go home to their families after 5:00pm and live a normal life. The additional subjects are the replacement for religious education (R.E) as well as the general command structure of the school.

Basically, our schools are normal schools, only we make sure the kids are brought up right, this effectivly stopped crime in Iuthia as well as making the nation a happier place to live in becuase children respect their elders.

In your system they get the same, only they also learn how to fight and become soldiers. Firstly, the cost. You have every child in boarding schools. You also have to pay extra for the equipment and employing proffesionals so you have a top class schooling system.

On top of that you have all basically institutionalised all of your citizens during their childhood. My children are a little less fun becuase they learn respect. Your children will have had little to no contact with the real world, they will come out at the age of 18 and be surrounded by a alien world that isn't a controlled environment, I suspect the shock is pretty rough on them, unless you use more time from educating them to prepare them for the real world.

When they leave they will have as much training to be a little like national guard, by that I mean they will not have spent all of their time training like the military does, but will have had enough to know a how to use a gun and handle themselves... they won't be as good as the real thing, but they will make good conscripts.

But then they join the real thing. This means that they are further institutionalised... probably for the better becuase the real world isn't the same as a boarding school.


In Iuthia, we have a two year complusory military service. In a way we are like your nation, but maybe a little less extreem. My kids can't fight like men. Anyways, this service can be taken at any point they like between the age of 18 - 26, baring in mind that they don't get full rights until they've entered the military. They would continue to be treated like teenagers, which means less freedom and no real minimum wage, rough, but no-one complains.

During this period they train for the first year to be good soldiers; more disapline, more history and morality lessons as well as strong pyhsical training. The second year teaches them to use weapons and fight like a soldier. We don't use up all of our military personnel figures with these people, but they do take up a fair bit of our military, making our military very "green" in places.

Taking these teenagers out of the workforce costs us alot of money, which is compensated for by the very large military budget we have. Our economy is affected by there loss, it's why Iuthia has yet to reach higher the "very strong" on the economic status.

I suspect your system is expensive, but it has alot of people prepared to go to war. We both have weapon trained citizens... but those skills are lost with time not training.

My previous post about military population still stands though, you would not be able to support a active military service of over 2% of your population... this is becuase of the shear cost of losing more people to military personnel... though you will have a high percentage of people capable of being in the military. To have them all in active service at once though would bankrupt you... so would mine, but we only use conscripts in times of dire need.

Summary: I like the children being trained, thats a nice touch... though I imagine they are pretty... dull. Plus I would hate to see what happens when they finally get to the real world... thats not going to be pretty. It happens in Iuthia to a small degree, becuase they are taken away from real life for two years.

The cost of boarding schools for every citizen will be very exspencive... and I personally think that you don't have alot of room for those who go professional, becuase alot of your military will be people who have to serve.


I know this is alot of information and I'm probably not right about parts of it, but most of what I said should be true. I may of assumed alot as well and I apologise for bits I mis-understand, but it honesty isn't easy to have alot of military in active service... ask the some of the big nations... they don't like seeing more then 2%* in active military service becuase of the cost.

Anyways... I will leave it at that for now...

*Some say 5%, but that is pretty costly for big nations like ours. I used to have a 5% active military, then found out it wasn't supportable. Now I have 1.4%