Nations with no armies?

http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/120617.cfm
Isaiah 25:6-10
Matthew 15:29-37

Under what circumstance would nations no longer need to train for war? Can we even imagine that? Upon serious reflection, I submit there's nothing we can manufacture, even in theory, that will accomplish total peace. In our dreams we can play out scenario after scenario that might work. Our dreams, unless divinely inspired, center upon what we humans can accomplish. We will never accomplish peace on our own. Our dreams remain dreams.

Sigh. 

The inevitability of nations at war puts every soul on earth on edge. Always has. To not train for war likely means attracting aggressors. No nation seems immune from armed conflict. And none are. But we hear in Isaiah 25 that God fully expects a war free world. Nations will still exist, but they will no longer prepare themselves for the possibility of war. No need for practicing roundhouse kicks, upgrading fully automatic weapons, or steeling ourselves with jutted non-negotiating chins. Swords won't rattle, because there will be no swords.

They shall beat their swords into plowshares
and their spears into pruning hooks;
One nation shall not raise the sword against another,
nor shall they train for war again.

When I was a little boy, Switzerland represented the most successful nation capable of avoiding war. In my home, growing up, the safe spot to stand in a melee of seven children would be called Switzerland; a place back in one corner of the room or the space behind the couch. No one could be touched while they stood in Switzerland. Only one person could stand there at a time, and for only so long. We would duck and dive from the missiles of pillows, and worse, hoping for a spot in Switzerland. When our arms would tire and our chests hurt from breathing too hard, we yearned for Switzerland.

Read the history of Switzerland, however, and that tiny myth-like nation has been engaged in fierce combat and comprehensive war preparations since its beginning. They may have eluded some wars in their 700 year history, but beneath the curtain of peace and calm has stood an entire population armed for conflict. Every able-bodied citizen was still armed in 1980, which made them the largest per capita armed force in the world. Men and women all trained for war. 

In the last 35 years, Switzerland has changed to a conscripted, drafted army of only 100,000 men and women, a significant drop from over one million. They have joined a new trend worldwide — shrinking armies. A mere ten countries still have mandatory conscription. Twenty-two don’t have an army at all. Is that what we imagine will be the start of a world of nations no longer training for war?

Sorry, no. The 30 largest armies in the world include 15 million soldiers. Double that to account for reserves. Another 200 countries count out 10 million more soldiers. Virtually every one of those 22 countries without an army has a military arrangement with another nation. In essence, every single country on earth has a strategy of military preparation. Armies may seem smaller, but practically every military budget has tripled in only 25 years. It’s not just the number of bodies training for war anymore. From cyber warfare to nuclear tactics countries have strengthened their preparedness for military action.

Every nation considers the possibility of going to war, and war touches every border. Skirmishes between nations have left no country unscathed. Every 25 years or so, rifles are fired East, West, North and South. Include also the number of wars within each nation’s border, whether by terrorists or paramilitary groups. Indeed, citizens fight each other with abandon. The count reveals an escalating epidemic of fire power and armed guards. No matter how we analyze the matter, military events have certainly taken place every single day on earth for the last 3000 years.

Some might argue that the preparation for war presents the very probability for war. This is a vacuous, facile argument. While it seems philosophically valid to say that the very existence of soldiers makes going to war inevitable, in fact the reality of a citizenry properly prepared for battles has deterred more wars than started them. 

I’m not setting up a military debate session, or even a justification for armies. I’m suggesting that something drastic and overwhelming worldwide would need to take place for the elimination of both war and the ready preparation for war. The shift must be cosmic, because every single nation’s citizenry needs to submit to peace in order for the complete end and finality of armed conflict. Such total submission requires a global takeover, a pervasive control that rewards the compliant and segregates the defiant.

The reward must be so great that to acquiesce to such a power fulfills us beyond our imagination. The segregation must be so effective that resistance, which is likely, is futile. 

What could implement such an indomitable worldwide peace? 

Will some weird anti-misogynist clan of women who compete in beauty pageants finally rise up through sheer will to force peace on earth? Could it be that soldiers around the globe, digitally connected through Facebook or Twitter, will simultaneously reject orders and drop their weapons into melting pots? Will dads and moms slam down their simultaneous feet, take charge, and end war? Or, will the bunkered cyber military forces of every nation go full nerd, create an anti-war virus, and pacify the world’s armaments? Perhaps we can eventually abandon bureaucratic reality and mystically mind-meld our nation’s leaders into declaring peace and quit the possibility of war forever.

A long series of smarmy and ridiculous books have suggested less insane, but similar paths to world peace. Movies have been made that imply world catastrophes will bring us all together, arm in arm, most likely with everyone agreeing to speak English. We decry these ever-increasing tomes as fantasy, but storytelling arouses a built-in yearning which exists for almost everyone. Can’t we all just get along?

Many suggest that the young are our best hope for peace in the world. Yet, I remember more violent engagements in my youth and teenage years far beyond those in the other 50 years of my life. Pillow fights are military training opportunities. Playground fisticuffs establish the importance of nationalist pride. Mothers and fathers may try to stop neighborhood kids from playing war games, discouraging the development of gangs and cliques and rivalries. Children, however, display a frightening premonition of an adult desire for human domination over others, a forced upon respect, and a ready access to sugar, the gateway drug rush to psychotropic courage.

None of these scenarios, though, provides the impetus for Isaiah’s visionary scripture on the end of war. Not nurturing and beautiful women, not idealistic soldiers where females finally balance testosterone, not forward thinking highly educated and revolutionized IT workers, not suddenly awakened politicians, and certainly not the children. 

In days to come,
The mountain of the LORD's house
shall be established as the highest mountain
and raised above the hills.
All nations shall stream toward it.

The biblical messages, straight from the revelations of the Father, Son and Spirit, explain without apology or restraint that Jesus will come back to take the helm of our King. He will not be an invisible spirit, or a force like gravity. He will reign as a human. He will arrive with his armies of angels and the resurrected saints of several millennia. All the world’s nations will yield and consent to the authority of Jesus Christ. Those eagerly grafted to the divine, as the Son has grafted to humanity, will administer his authority. Those resigned to divine authority will live in peace. Those who resist will retreat powerless, insistent to conspire with evil, but unable to perform. 

Only then will the world will be changed.

"Come, let us climb the LORD's mountain,
to the house of the God of Jacob,
That he may instruct us in his ways,
and we may walk in his paths."

Nothing we’re doing now or in our imaginary future, and no negotiations we imagine, can convince the world’s populations to go full non-army peaceful. Only God’s overwhelming presence and thoroughly unstoppable angels and saints will stop war.

For from Zion shall go forth instruction,
and the word of the LORD from Jerusalem.

The world will not be transformed by a global vaccine, or a chip in our brains. Truth and it’s consequences will roll out an everlasting peace upon the world. Indeed, the entire universe. Everyone will need to choose affiliation and intimacy with the God of Adam, Moses, Jacob, and the Apostles, or shrivel into the disintegrated evil of violence, aggression, conflict, and disobedience.

He shall judge between the nations,
and impose terms on many peoples.

Jesus will expect results according to a specific set of terms and conditions. Through his power as creator of the world in which we live in, he has chosen to live as one of us, and with us, for all time. His improperly perceived distance and even suggested disappearance, will end with his ever presence. His perceived laissez faire attitude will end with his rule. No other response than fealty and honesty and love of God, and each other, will be possible. We will choose to live in his immense light, or we’ll take our infected and weaponized pillows and retreat to the tiny dark.

O house of Jacob, come,
let us walk in the light of the LORD!