In the American Revolution, the bourgeois nationalists were supported by France, in the form of Lafayette. On his return to France, Lafayette, himself, becomes a part of the revolutionary, bourgeois forces that overthrew the old feudal regime, just the Americans had done, in relation to Britain. This also shows just how facile and dishonest are those arguments of the social-imperialists, who have used the example of the involvement of aristocratic France in support of the American revolutionaries, to justify their support for the involvement of NATO imperialism in various conflicts, as in Libya, Iraq and so on. At no time did France have a controlling role in the American Revolution, as US imperialism/NATO insists upon, and exercises due to its overwhelming military power. Even then, 20% of the American revolutionaries, in Congress voted against an alliance with France, correctly fearing that they would simply exchange one tyranny for another.
“The French Revolution completed and in the military sphere too what the American Revolution had begun. It too could oppose to the well-trained mercenary armies of the Coalition only poorly trained masses but in large numbers, the levy of the entire nation. But these masses had to protect Paris, that is, to hold a definite area, and for this purpose victory in open mass battle was essential. Mere skirmishes were not enough; a form had to be found to make use of large masses and this form was discovered in the column.” (p 215)
This brings the need to reorganise the army itself, into independent divisions, which is later extended in combing the army with the navy and, later, air force. In turn, the need to coordinate these independent services requires a new structure above them.
“The revolutionary system of arming the whole people was soon restricted to conscription (with substitution for the rich, who paid for their release) and in this form it was adopted by most of the large states on the Continent. Only Prussia attempted through its Landwehr system, to draw to a greater extent on the military strength of the nation. Prussia was also the first state to equip its whole infantry—after the rifled muzzle-loader, which had been improved between 1830 and 1860 and found fit for use in war, had played a brief role—with the most up-to-date weapon, the rifled breech-loader. Its successes in 1866 were due to these two innovations.” (p 216)
Engels had set out, in his discussion of the Prussian Military Question, that universal conscription was the corollary of universal suffrage. If the entire people, the majority of whom are increasingly proletarians, are to have the vote, how are they to ensure that the outcome of that vote is implemented other than by themselves enforcing it, arms in hand. Of course, that is not the desire of the bourgeoisie, who, just in case all of the firewalls erected by bourgeois-democracy, to prevent the election of a socialist government, are breached, wants to be able to cast the façade of that democracy aside, and use its army to ensure its continued rule.
In the US, where the popular militia was a symbol of its popular revolution, and was written into its constitution, in The Second Amendment, the bourgeoisie, once established, quickly undermined it, and created a standing army. The Second Amendment, intended to guarantee the continuation of such an armed popular militia, has, instead, become just a basis for individual gun ownership by all sorts of crackpots and criminals.
In place of universal conscription, and military training, which is only introduced when countries are engaged in large-scale, inter-imperialist wars, bourgeois states have created professional armies, small in size, but with strict hierarchical organisation and discipline. They are more akin to the old organisation based upon mercenaries, as the foot soldiers are largely economic conscripts and lumpen elements drawn from depressed areas, whilst the NCO's are, usually, drawn from the middle-class layers, whilst the top brass continue to be drawn from the ranks of the ruling-class. The ruling-class continue to be able to exclude themselves from anything that involves actual fighting, as seen during conscription in the US, in the Vietnam War.
As is also seen, the imperialist states have also reverted to the use of mercenaries on a wider scale, as they utilise other states to engage in proxy wars on their behalf, as now seen in Ukraine and the Middle-East, and previously, the use of Iraq to attack Iran, in the 1980's. The use of various criminal gangs, as in El Salvador and Nicaragua, the KLA in Kosovo, has also been developed, often connected with the use of drug trafficking, as with the Iran-Contra Scandal. The same was true with US support for the Mujaheddin, and Bin Laden in Afghanistan. The use of Islamist gangs has also been a feature of more recent US policy in Libya, and Syria, channelled via the CIA, and US allies in the Gulf Monarchies.
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