Why would my empire be a military power?

[DragonOfTheAerie]

Again...just returned to thinking about my WIP, pinpointed a lot of important questions, so sorry about all the threads.

In my WIP the known world is mainly dominated by a vast empire. There are some that exist outside the empire, but they are small groups that in no way threaten or even interact with the empire.

Now, I want to portray this empire as a large, powerful military power. That's why no one dares rebel against it and those who scrape by outside it stay well away. But, why would a nation that is threatened by no one be a strong military power with a well-organized army? I mean, I suppose their strength and scariness somewhat depends on their power, but...if the empire has no need to defend against anyone, why would they have a well-trained, well-maintained army, and weapons to arm it, just lying around? The army wouldn't have much to do. The money invested in weaponry would be a a waste.

I have some ideas:

1. The empire only recently was at peace. Not many years ago, they spent centuries trying to hold their borders against small, guerrilla-like barbarian invasions (somewhat like Ancient Rome). However, the barbarians eventually were driven back.

2. Recent rebellions within the empires borders, which happen constantly especially near the borders where there is less control, continually require military intervention to put down. The Empire tries to hush up the fact that they happen, even though none are close to successful.

3. The military serves some other purpose within the empire, law enforcement for example.

4. The empires military isn't actually as strong as its citizens are led to believe, and the empire keeps everyone under control using fear.

I really like the idea of a recent rebellion that was brutally crushed, and a couple characters who were members of a slight handful of survivors who escaped brutal execution for their involvement. But that's a tangent.

Small, slightly related question: How would a large empire define its borders? Walls? Or would the border be largely imaginary? Might the empire in theory control much more land than it actually has power over, and harbor tracts of wilderness where anti-imperial forces can thrive?

 

[Ban]

Domestic fighting:
The empire could suffer from domestic attacks. Small guerilla groups of bandits, heretics, mercenaries and other undesirables by the state could be waging an underground war with the regime. As guerilla groups are notoriously hard to fight, the empire would need a powerful military to protect itself.

Religion/Culture:
I have a country in my main fantasy world who were traditionaly reliant on raiding and warfare centuries ago. Now they have turned their eye to trade and farming, but it is still tradition for clans to "wage war" on eachother. Within my world, these wars are largely ceremonial and few die in the process, but a strong army is still required to come out of the "war" with any dignity.

Constitution
A large, organized army could have been made mandatory by the state a long time ago when it was needed. No leader managed to write it out of the constitution without opposition, so... here the army remains.

 

[Asura Levi]

(...)
But, why would a nation that is threatened by no one be a strong military power with a well-organized army?
(...)

I believe that the answer is in the question: the empire is threatened by no one because of it's strong and well organised military power.

Any country/kingdom/empire vast enough to encompass a multitude of cultures will be at constant risk of internal conflicts. One group will always get the better stuff, usually the seat of power, while other group will often have their problems dismissed, border lands.

If the emperor wish to keep the throne and the whole thing intact, it must have a very organised structure, must be respect, or feared enough by their underlings.
After all, it needs only one province to start dissent, revolt, pulling the empire strength towards itself, weakening the empire elsewhere, thus opening more doors for further conflict.

Maybe the empire is at peace for generations, but only if their leader is good/wise/quick enough to stop revolts at its primordial and yet not be too ruthless with the dissident population.

 

[skip.knox]

Any standing army is a *huge* expense. Not only do you have to pay the soldiers, you have to find a place for your retired veterans. Check the history of the Roman Republic for the difficulties on that little problem. Moreover, you are taking able-bodied people out of the work force.

I'm sorry, but if there is no real and persistent threat, your empire simply is not going to afford a big military. Honestly, I would recommend having barbarians at the borders. Constant (and effective) raids into imperial territory is plenty to justify a military, especially if those raids occasionally become full-scale invasions. China does not build its wall if there's no one to keep out.

But why do you need this huge empire with no challengers? How does that play into your story?

 

[skip.knox]

On your related question, borders are rarely defined by only one party. The guys living on the other side have to agree, or you get what is sometimes called a "war." ;-)

I sometimes talk about this with my students. If you look at a political map of anything pre-modern (Middle Ages, for example), it's easy to think France ended right here, and Italy right there, and so on. But it wasn't like that at all. There were claims and counter-claims that reached for miles and extended across generations. And knowing exactly the boundaries of a parish or a village was even trickier. This is great news for the writer, because it provides us plenty of opportunities for conflict. (property disputes were *huge* business in the Middle Ages)

All that having been said, the easy boundaries came from geography. Oceans work great. Rivers are pretty good, though they do change course from time to time, which created twenty kinds of legal havoc. Mountain ranges aren't to bad but they tend to have people actually living in them, which can be awkward.

Beyond geography, people did their best. They set boundary stones--you picked big ones so it was hard for the other guy to move them. They some times built walls, but walls are expensive both to build and to maintain. Less geographically precise, but sometimes effective, they built a network of castles, such as those the English built along the Welsh border. In the world of grand politics, such things might serve, but it could get tricky when trying to figure out if my cows wandered onto the other king's land.

As always, I try to think about the fantasy angle. Could magic figure into this question of political boundaries? I can see some possibilities there.

 

[DragonOfTheAerie]

Any standing army is a *huge* expense. Not only do you have to pay the soldiers, you have to find a place for your retired veterans. Check the history of the Roman Republic for the difficulties on that little problem. Moreover, you are taking able-bodied people out of the work force.

I'm sorry, but if there is no real and persistent threat, your empire simply is not going to afford a big military. Honestly, I would recommend having barbarians at the borders. Constant (and effective) raids into imperial territory is plenty to justify a military, especially if those raids occasionally become full-scale invasions. China does not build its wall if there's no one to keep out.

But why do you need this huge empire with no challengers? How does that play into your story?

Exactly what my suspicions were telling me...

The empire is supposed to seem invincible, basically. Once the MC's escape its borders they start entertaining plans of overthrowing it, but it is simply too powerful to be challenged by anyone else in the world.

Later on there will be a war (mostly guerrilla warfare, probably...spying, raids, sabotage, very little battlefield action.) The empire crumples in on itself from within and is quickly engaged in a civil war...at any rate, the good guys are outnumbered and not nearly as powerful as those who cling to the old traditions of the empire.

Perhaps the empire is able to raise an army. However, I'm doubting the plausibility of getting an army and weapons and supplies and transportation together that quickly.

Once the collapse starts to happen, how does the empire fight back? Or can it fight back?

Without an army, how does the empire put down rebellions, hold its borders, etc?

Thoughts, anyone?

 

[DragonOfTheAerie]

On your related question, borders are rarely defined by only one party. The guys living on the other side have to agree, or you get what is sometimes called a "war." ;-)

I sometimes talk about this with my students. If you look at a political map of anything pre-modern (Middle Ages, for example), it's easy to think France ended right here, and Italy right there, and so on. But it wasn't like that at all. There were claims and counter-claims that reached for miles and extended across generations. And knowing exactly the boundaries of a parish or a village was even trickier. This is great news for the writer, because it provides us plenty of opportunities for conflict. (property disputes were *huge* business in the Middle Ages)

All that having been said, the easy boundaries came from geography. Oceans work great. Rivers are pretty good, though they do change course from time to time, which created twenty kinds of legal havoc. Mountain ranges aren't to bad but they tend to have people actually living in them, which can be awkward.

Beyond geography, people did their best. They set boundary stones--you picked big ones so it was hard for the other guy to move them. They some times built walls, but walls are expensive both to build and to maintain. Less geographically precise, but sometimes effective, they built a network of castles, such as those the English built along the Welsh border. In the world of grand politics, such things might serve, but it could get tricky when trying to figure out if my cows wandered onto the other king's land.

As always, I try to think about the fantasy angle. Could magic figure into this question of political boundaries? I can see some possibilities there.

Coming off what you said about boundaries: my idea was that the empire controls the whole continent *in theory*, but there are vast tracts of wilderness where small groups have holed up that aren't part of the Empire. Besides these, there really isn't anything except the Empire. This is a one world government we're dealing with (no questions on how it got that way, please, I have a great explanation, but it would take a while to outline).

 

[DragonOfTheAerie]

A useful detail is that the Empire breeds dragons. They're for keeping the peace and controlling crime and keeping the subjugated masses from rebelling, but they could turn into a quite formidable force if united against a threat.

 

[FifthView]

1. The empire only recently was at peace. Not many years ago, they spent centuries trying to hold their borders against small, guerrilla-like barbarian invasions (somewhat like Ancient Rome). However, the barbarians eventually were driven back.

2. Recent rebellions within the empires borders, which happen constantly especially near the borders where there is less control, continually require military intervention to put down. The Empire tries to hush up the fact that they happen, even though none are close to successful.

How recently was the last holdout subjugated? Empires tend to form when one central power expands outward, subjugating smaller or weaker lands. Surrounding kingdoms, tribal lands, smaller empires.

Skip's right about maintaining a standing army, but perhaps your empire's only just completed its total conquest of the continent. It's between that stage of final conquest and realizing the dreadful, unsustainable cost of maintaining a large standing army.

Also, lands recently conquered are more likely to be at risk of rebellion. So your empire might still have occupying forces in those lands.

You'd have to give up the idea of their fighting surrounding barbarian guerrillas for centuries (as if the empire has otherwise long ago subjugated all foreign powers), unless that was on one front maybe while they were still subjugating lands in other directions.

You could maybe introduce some outside forces, like raiding barbarians, extensive piracy by various island nations separate from the main continent, and so forth. Perhaps news of a new continent has just reached your empire and the leaders are salivating, ready for more conquest. Again though, these things could be, and probably ought to be, in that period just after total conquest of the continent.

 

[Demesnedenoir]

If going for a different twist... A huge standing army for no particular reason would require an extremely wealthy gov't, with a high level of prosperity, in this case keeping an army may not hinder the work force, but rather keep young potentially volatile males off the unemployment lines, so to speak. In this sense, if there are particular cultures within the empire who are more prone to rebellion, drafting the youth of the region into the military and relocating them, feeding them, paying them, brainwashing them, during their peak physical prime (as well as potentially breeding out the purity of their ethnic ties and diluting their cultural ties) could be very useful for the empire.

 

[Ragnar]

I think this, which is topical as well, best describes why the empire would need, and have a standing army. Taking the US's example, with the government meddling in other countries affairs like it's been doing, as well as the leaders increasing paranoia about citizens rebelling, they not only use the army to enforce their will on other countries, but they use it at home as well. So while the cost is prohibitive, they just drain the citizens more and more via taxes to fund the army and their aims.

Obviously, in your world there aren't independent countries exactly, but if the empire spans multiple cultures and multiple races, it would likely be used within its own boarders, to maintain order and enforce increasingly draconian laws put in place to pacify and oppress the citizens.

That's my thought anyway. For what it's worth

 

[skip.knox]

One way to make your empire seem dominant is to put its stamp on everything. Imperial architecture, cities named after emperors, imperial coinage, fashion, literature ... in short, a near-total victory in culture. This readily leads into enclaves where the old ways, old gods, old laws, are remembered and protected. Secret meetings, cults, conspiracies.

It's entirely possible to keep a standing army even at great expense and still have it not be terribly effective. Do what they will, the ruling elite cannot keep out regional loyalties, so armies in the north will have a different composition that armies in the south, for example. The armies in the interior, or wherever lies the center of power, can become decadent and corrupt, more interested in playing politics than in actually fighting battles. Models here would include the Ottoman Empire after about 1750, or the late Roman Empire. Or the Mamluks in Egypt in the 15thc. All were once both large and formidable, but which proved to be extremely brittle in a crisis.

The trick is going to be indicating this in your story without it turning into a political science lesson. And if the imperial power really is fragile, then it doesn't seem so scary. You don't want, I assume, the reader at the end of the book to be thinking, gosh, all it took in the end was a poke in the right vulnerable spot and it all tumbled down.

 

[Ragnar]

One way to make your empire seem dominant is to put its stamp on everything. Imperial architecture, cities named after emperors, imperial coinage, fashion, literature ... in short, a near-total victory in culture. This readily leads into enclaves where the old ways, old gods, old laws, are remembered and protected. Secret meetings, cults, conspiracies.

This is really a good idea. It adds flavor to the areas in the story. Just think about Rome and how they influenced things in say England and Northern Europe. Their changing of names, "Romanizing" it as well as buildings built in the Roman style. You could create titles indicative of the empire in the story and paste them over the normal areas authority figures. I think it would help elevate the story and add flair and compelling details.

 

[DragonOfTheAerie]

So, how might I go about writing this empire getting into a civil war? How would they raise an army...?

 

[Ban]

So, how might I go about writing this empire getting into a civil war? How would they raise an army...?

I assume you mean how the rebels would gain a strong enough force to oppose the rulers. That's pretty simpl I think. Any big empire will have a large amount of people opposed to it. The poor, people of non-state religions, ethnic minorities (if your empire persecutes those), the idealists, etc... Besides them there will be people who smell profit in the destruction of this empire. These can be enterprising bourgeoise, greedy nobles, mercenary bands, criminal gangs or even cult leaders. As long as something is to be gained, some people will fight for it.

 

[DragonOfTheAerie]

I assume you mean how the rebels would gain a strong enough force to oppose the rulers. That's pretty simpl I think. Any big empire will have a large amount of people opposed to it. The poor, people of non-state religions, ethnic minorities (if your empire persecutes those), the idealists, etc... Besides them there will be people who smell profit in the destruction of this empire. These can be enterprising bourgeoise, greedy nobles, mercenary bands, criminal gangs or even cult leaders. As long as something is to be gained, some people will fight for it.

What I'm looking for is more, how would the empire crush this rebellion?

 

[skip.knox]

Civil wars are easy. The very essence of empire is that it is a conglomeration of disparate cultural entities. Kingdoms, if you wish. Each of these is a potential combatant. Add to this simple genealogy--there will always be branches of the family tree thinking they have a better claim to the throne and willing to cultivate local aspirations to get there.

Crushing a rebellion is as simple as having overwhelming force. Are you talking about crushing a specific rebellion, or are you talking about how to oppress and so crush all rebellions before they get started?

Try this, DotA. Imagine yourself a rebel. How do you go about rebelling? How do you get followers? How do you get weapons? Where do you strike? What's your game plan? Don't worry about the empire side for now, just really get into the whole rebel thing.

When you think you have a fairly good notion of who, when, where, how and why of the rebellion, now switch sides. As the clever advisor to the Emperor, how do you keep an eye out for rebellion? What are your tools? Spies? Police? Do you keep people at the edge of starvation? Do you keep them tranquil with bread and circuses? What keeps the ship of state running smoothly? Don't forget about those nasty palace revolts. Become King Spider and dole out the carrots and sticks.

OK. Now, like the song, you've looked at life from both sides now. I will bet a shiny dime that you will have several ideas for how your rebellion is going to play out.

 

[Ragnar]

Well, depending on how the empire treats its citizens, to confront a threat, especially an internal threat, they would begin by starting things like curfews, checkpoints at entrances and exits to cities and even regions, along well traveled roads or even waterways. They would suspend activities like protests, gatherings like markets or festivals, holidays or entertainment. Likely they would start rationing supplies (if the city doesn't have a good supply of something. Food, water etc..). If their military isn't at overwhelming strength, they might begin pressing able bodied citizens into military service. Especially decadent empires would have spies that kept an eye on potential dissidents, perhaps even stage elaborate false flag attacks to bolster their "moral" position and sway more to their view of the conflict. Empires (I believe), would try to crush opposition by oppressing their citizens and starving, or stopping the supply of weapons and necessary items like food, water and medical gear. Whether that method works or not, that depends on what type of story your writing. Who the heroes or anti-heroes are and how you want the story to progress.

Is that more what your looking for? (I imagine communist east Germany, and places like New York/California that continually institute more and more restrictive, even oppressive laws that have little effect on crime or corruption.)

 

[SaltyDog]

What I'm looking for is more, how would the empire crush this rebellion?

Dragons? Lol sorry had to say that.

 

[SaltyDog]

Well, depending on how the empire treats its citizens, to confront a threat, especially an internal threat, they would begin by starting things like curfews, checkpoints at entrances and exits to cities and even regions, along well traveled roads or even waterways. They would suspend activities like protests, gatherings like markets or festivals, holidays or entertainment. Likely they would start rationing supplies (if the city doesn't have a good supply of something. Food, water etc..). If their military isn't at overwhelming strength, they might begin pressing able bodied citizens into military service. Especially decadent empires would have spies that kept an eye on potential dissidents, perhaps even stage elaborate false flag attacks to bolster their "moral" position and sway more to their view of the conflict. Empires (I believe), would try to crush opposition by oppressing their citizens and starving, or stopping the supply of weapons and necessary items like food, water and medical gear. Whether that method works or not, that depends on what type of story your writing. Who the heroes or anti-heroes are and how you want the story to progress.

Is that more what your looking for? (I imagine communist east Germany, and places like New York/California that continually institute more and more restrictive, even oppressive laws that have little effect on crime or corruption.)

Very true, they might also began disarming the populace.