A standing army is a permanent, often professional, army. It is composed of full-time soldiers who may be either career soldiers or conscripts. It differs from army reserves, who are enrolled for the long term, but activated only during wars or natural disasters, and temporary armies, which are raised from the civilian population only during a war or threat of war, and disbanded once the war or threat is over. Standing armies tend to be better equipped, better trained, and better prepared for emergencies, defensive deterrence, and particularly, wars. The term dates from approximately 1603, although the phenomenon it describes is much older.
History
Ancient history
Mesopotamia Sargon of Akkad, the founder of the Akkadian Empire, is believed to have formed the first standing professional army. Tiglath-Pileser III of Assyria (ruled 745–727 BC) created Assyria's first standing army. Tiglath-Pileser III disbanded militias and instead paid professional soldiers for their services. His army was composed largely of Assyrian soldiers but was supplemented with foreign mercenaries and vassal states. The standing army he created was the most sophisticated administrative and economic institution of its time, and it was the engine of the Assyrian economy, which capitalized on warfare.
Ancient Persia Cyrus the Great formed the first professional army of Persia. The composition of the army varied and evolved. The empire's great armies were, like the empire itself, very diverse. Its standing army was composed of Persians (the bravest people of the empire, according to Herodotus) and Medes. This standing army, which may have been reviewed annually by the king or his representative, is referred to as kāra in the inscriptions. At the heart of this army was its elite guard, the 10,000 Immortals. Herodotus describes that if any of these guardsmen drops out owing to death or disease, a substitute is immediately supplied and the number again filled. Thousands of these 10,000 guardsmen composed the royal bodyguards in the palace, their insignia were golden apples or pomegranates at the butts of their spears (accordingly they are named “apple-bearers” by Heraclides Cumaeus).
Ancient Greece
In ancient Greece, the armies of Greek city-states generally consisted exclusively of militias drawn from the civilian population. Although the city-state of Sparta is commonly claimed to have had the sole standing army of ancient Greece, a claim derived from early modern and 19th-century Western historians, in reality the Spartan army consisted entirely of militia in common with other Greek city-states. As noted by the English historian Stephen Hodkinson, "[contrary] to orthodox views, Sparta’s full citizens, the Spartiates, were not professional or specialized full-time soldiers and, apart from practice in elementary drill, their training focused mainly on physical fitness." The city-state of Athens raised a professional cavalry force in the 440s BC which by the late 430s BC comprised 1,000 Hippeis (heavy cavalry) and 200 horse archers. From 421 to 418 BC, the city-state of Argos maintained a standing force of 1,000 hoplites, and in 378 BC the city-state of Thebes raised the Sacred Band of Thebes, a standing force of 300 elite hoplites which existed until 338 BC. Philip II of Macedon, who reigned from 359 to 336 BC, transformed the ancient Macedonian army into a standing force with its troops being paid year-round. This army would under Philip's son Alexander the Great go on to participate in numerous conquests.
Ancient China The Western Zhou maintained a standing army, enabling them to control other city-states effectively and spread their influence. Unlike the Western Zhou, the Eastern Zhou initially did not have a standing army. Instead, they drafted militias from around 150 city-states. While the Eastern Zhao did not initially maintain a standing army, the state of Jin became the first to do so in 678 BCE. The first professional army in China was established by the Qin dynasty in 221 BCE, which ushered in Imperial China. Under the Qin dynasty, wars were fought by trained vocational soldiers instead of relying on temporary soldiers.
Ancient India In Ancient India, warfare was first attested during the Vedic period. However, warfare was primarily waged between various clans and kingdoms solely by the kshatriya class during times of conflict. True standing armies in India developed under the Mahajanapadas, which relied on paid professional soldiers year-round. The most prominent of the Mahajanapadas was the Kingdom of Magadha. It is accepted that the first standing army of India was created in Maghada by the ruler Bimbisara.
Ancient Rome Under the reign of Augustus, the first Roman emperor, a standing professional army of the Roman Empire was gradually instituted, with regularized pay. This professional force of legionaries was expensive to maintain, but supported the authority of the empire, not only as combat troops but also as provincial police forces, engineers, and guards. Legionaries were citizen volunteers entitled to a discharge bounty upon 25 years of honourable service; supplementing the legions were the auxilia, auxiliary forces composed of non-citizens in the provinces who typically earned citizenship as a reward for service. In late antiquity and the early Byzantine period, this system evolved into a more differentiated military structure, in which mobile field armies (comitatenses) were complemented by frontier troops (limitanei) tasked with guarding and policing the imperial borders.
Post-classical history
Ottoman Empire The first modern standing armies on European soil during the Middle Ages were the Janissaries of the Ottoman Empire, which were formed in the 14th century under Sultan Murad I.
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