> If there's anything worth defending, people will volunteer to defend it.
replyThat's a pretty binary view of the situation. It's not enough for something to be worth defending: People have to recognize that it's worth defending — and that might not happen instantaneously, because "people" come to appreciate things at very different rates.
Seems like there's a clear free-rider problem, the volunteers make the sacrifice and the non-volunteers reap the benefits.
replyWhat if people do but not in enough numbers? Farewell, sweet country!
replyIf the country doesn't have enough people to defend it, perhaps it's good and just that some other community gets to control the territory? A country isn't really anything except for its people, after all.
replyThe occupying power may be interested in your country's resources rather than its people.
replyHow does that change matters? If anything that makes it even worse. If not enough of your people can't be bothered to join the military even when an enemy army is invading, perhaps the country in question should draw the conclusion it's not viable as an independent nation.
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replyIndeed, and there are many historical examples of this.
replyToday’s average Western nation-state tends to be a rathole that spits into the faces of its citizens every single day, until the moment the state is under attack, at which point everyone is told that they owe their lives to their sacred motherland that has done so much for them.