Standing army in the context of "Army of the classical Ottoman Empire"

A regular army is the official army of a state or country (the official armed forces), contrasting with irregular forces, such as volunteer irregular militias, private armies, mercenaries, etc. A regular army usually has the following:

• a standing army, the permanent force of the regular army that is maintained under arms during peacetime.
• a military reserve force that can be mobilized when needed to expand the effectiveness of the regular army by complementing the standing army.

The British Army is the land warfare force of the United Kingdom responsible for defending the UK, the British Overseas Territories and Crown Dependencies. The British Army has seen involvement in most of the world's major wars throughout history, including both world wars and was founded in 1707. As of 1 January 2025, the British Army comprises 73,847 regular full-time personnel, 4,127 Gurkhas, 25,742 volunteer reserve personnel and 4,697 "other personnel", for a total of 108,413.

The British Army traces back to 1707 and the formation of the united Kingdom of Great Britain which joined the Kingdoms of England and Scotland into a single state and, with that, united the English Army and the Scots Army as the British Army. The English Bill of Rights 1689 and Scottish Claim of Right Act 1689 require parliamentary consent for the Crown to maintain a peacetime standing army. Members of the British Army swear allegiance to the monarch as their commander-in-chief. The army is administered by the Ministry of Defence and commanded by the Chief of the General Staff.

Power projection (or force projection or strength projection) in international relations is the capacity of a state to deploy and sustain forces outside its territory. The ability of a state to project its power into an area may serve as an effective diplomatic lever, influencing the decision-making processes and acting as a potential deterrent on other states' behavior.

This ability is a crucial element of a state's power in international relations. Any state able to direct its military forces outside its territory might be said to have some level of power projection capability, but the term itself is used most frequently in reference to militaries with a worldwide reach (or at least significantly broader than a state's immediate area). Even states with sizable hard power assets (such as a large standing army) may only be able to exert limited regional influence so long as they lack the means of effectively projecting their power on a global scale. Generally, only a select few states are able to overcome the logistical difficulties inherent in the deployment and direction of a modern, mechanized military force. Allies and partners can take up or share some of the burden of power projection. One measure of the capability of a state to project power is the loss-of-strength gradient, until a culminating point is apparent to others, once an operation is underway.

Kashindan (家臣団) was an institution of the retainers (kashin) of the shogun or a daimyo in Japan that became a class of samurai. It was divided into the military commanders (bankata) and the civil officers (yakukata).

In the Nanboku-chō and Muromachi periods, the kashindan began to include members of the clan that it served. In the Sengoku period, in response to the need for a strong military organization with a centralized power structure, the daimyo organized their own kashindan as a standing army. By the Edo period, they had become a discrete class of samurai, and each family was paid an annual stipend according to its rank. The kashindan was abolished in 1871 as part of the Meiji Restoration.

A janissary (UK: /ˈdʒænɪsəri/ JAN-iss-ər-ee, US: /-sɛri/ -⁠err-ee; Ottoman Turkish: یڭیچری, romanized: yeñiçeri, IPA: [jeˈŋit͡ʃeɾ̞i], lit. 'new soldier') was a member of the elite infantry units that formed the Ottoman sultan's household troops. They were the first modern standing army, and perhaps the first infantry force in the world to be equipped with firearms, adopted during the reign of Murad II (r. 1421–1444, 1446–1451). The corps was established under either Orhan or Murad I, and dismantled by Mahmud II in 1826.

Janissaries began as an elite corps made up through the devşirme system of child levy enslavement, by which Christian boys, chiefly from the Balkans, were taken, levied, subjected to forced circumcision and forced conversion to Islam, and incorporated into the Ottoman army. They became famed for internal cohesion cemented by strict discipline and order. Unlike typical slaves, they were paid regular salaries. Forbidden to marry before the age of 40 or engage in trade, their complete loyalty to the Ottoman sultan was expected. By the 17th century, due to a dramatic increase in the size of the Ottoman standing army, the corps' initially strict recruitment policy was relaxed. Civilians bought their way into it in order to benefit from the improved socio-economic status it conferred upon them. Consequently, the corps gradually lost its military character, undergoing a process that has been described as "civilianization".

A militia (/mɪˈlɪʃə/ mil-ISH-ə) is a military or paramilitary force that comprises civilian members, as opposed to a professional standing army of regular, full-time military personnel. Militias may be raised in times of need to support regular troops or serve as a pool of available manpower for regular forces to draw from.

When acting independently, militias are generally unable to hold ground against regular forces. Militias commonly support regular troops by skirmishing, holding fortifications, or conducting irregular warfare, instead of undertaking offensive campaigns by themselves. However, militias may also engage in defense activities to protect a community, its territory, property, and laws. For example, naval militias may comprise fishermen and other civilians which are organized and sanctioned by a state to enforce its maritime boundaries.

Tiglath-Pileser III (Neo-Assyrian Akkadian: 𒆪𒋾𒀀𒂍𒈗𒊏, romanized: Tukultī-apil-Ešarra, meaning "my trust belongs to the son of Ešarra", Biblical Hebrew: תִּגְלַת פִּלְאֶסֶר‎, romanized: Tiglaṯ Pilʾeser) was the Neo-Assyrian emperor from 745 BC to his death in 727. One of the most prominent and historically significant Assyrian rulers, Tiglath-Pileser ended a period of Assyrian stagnation, introduced numerous political and military reforms, and doubled the lands under Assyrian control. Because of the massive expansion and centralization of Assyrian territory and the establishment of a standing army, some researchers consider Tiglath-Pileser's reign to mark the actual transition of Assyria into an empire. The reforms and methods of control introduced under Tiglath-Pileser laid the groundwork for policies enacted not only by later Assyrian kings but also by later empires for millennia after his death.

The circumstances of Tiglath-Pileser's rise to the throne are not clear. Because ancient Assyrian sources give conflicting accounts concerning Tiglath-Pileser's lineage and there are records of a revolt around the time of his accession, many historians have concluded that Tiglath-Pileser was a usurper, who seized the throne from his predecessor Ashur-nirari V, who was either his brother or his father. Other historians postulate that the evidence could just as easily be interpreted as Tiglath-Pileser inheriting the throne through legitimate means, and the debate remains unresolved.