in order to maintain the order of things which not only does not result from the necessity of the nation, but is frequently opposed to it and is advantageous only to the government and to the ruling classes.
Every government needs armies, first of all, in order to keep its subjects in submission, and to exploit their labors. But the government is not alone; side by side with it there is another government, which exploits its subjects by means of the same violence, and which is always ready to take away from another government the labors of its already enslaved subjects. And so every government needs an army, not only for internal use, but also for the protection of its booty against neighboring ravishers. Every government is in consequence of this involuntarily led to the necessity of increasing its army in emulation with the other governments; but the increasing of armies is contagious, as Montesquieu remarked 150 years ago.
Every increase of an army in a state, directed against its subjects, becomes dangerous even for its neighbors, and evokes an increase in the neighboring states.