What is the difference between a militia, a military, and a paramilitary?

Question

What is the difference between a militia, a military, and a paramilitary? Which one is the National Guard? Which ones are good and which ones are bad?

Answer 1

Militia usually refers to a force of ordinary citizens who provide some sort of military-type service. Most unofficial militias are also paramilitary.

A military is the official armed defence force of a country.

A paramilitary is a force similar to a military in terms of organization and purpose, but is officially outside the armed defence forces.

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As you can see, the terms overlap and vary from case to case.

For instance, the Army Reserve is both a militia and part of the military.

Armed police forces are usually considered paramilitary but not militia. This is the same case with terrorist groups such as FARC.

Your typical militia group in the US, such as the Michigan Militia is considered militia and paramilitary.

Which ones are good and which are bad? None of the terms refer to a 'good' or a 'bad' group, it depends on the group in particular.

Answer 2

The local police and sheriff departments also fall into the category f a paramilitary organization, they are not under the control of the federal or state government, they have a military rank and command structure, organized, well armed and well trained in tactics that an average citizen in a volunteer militia would not generally posses unless they had themselves been a member of the military or law enforcement organization, which todays world most militia members are military veterans. As for which is good or bad,, its like anything else in this world, its all about the intentions of those people that fall into one of the three, the label has no bearing on who is the white hat, who is the black hat and who the other decides to run with.

Answer 3

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What is the difference between a militia, a military, and a paramilitary?
What is the difference between a militia, a military, and a paramilitary? Which one is the National Guard? Which ones are good and which ones are bad?

Answer 4

That kind of depends. In the USA, every able bodied person is the militia. The federal military is the active duty folks and the Reserves and possibly the National Guard since the federal government pays their bills. The National Guard can also be thought of as the state reserve army. Para-military are organizations that are organized similar to the military and could at least conceivably be used as part of a military such as state police forces. Generally private armies also fall under this (a stretch in the USA but I'd say the closest example would be the thugs paid by drug lords). Good/bad is too relative to make any broad scale categorization as there are situations where any of the above could be good or bad.

Answer 5

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Guerrilla is a tactic used by poorly equipped army against a larger and better-armed enemy. Rebels are groups who are rebelling against the current form or leadership of government, regardless of the tactics used (for example, in the American Revolution the Continental army primarily used the same tactics as the British.) Insurgents are involved in an insurgency, which is essentially a rebellion, and are engaged in guerrilla-style tactics. A paramilitary group is merely one that is organized and sometimes armed like a military organization, but is not part of the military. The police is a form of paramilitary group. A militia is a paramilitary group either tacitly or actively supported by the government and meant to be used as a reserve force in the event of a national emergency or invasion.

Answer 6

A militia is a citizens army. Usually only organized for a short time to defend the home and surrounding area of the citizens. They elect their officers and provide their own weapons.

A military is a well organized force under the control of a nation-state.

A paramilitary is usually a bunch of thugs with automatic weapons, amphetamines and too much media coverage.

The National Guard is a militia -- its use is restricted to the state, it is under the control of the state Governor, and the state provides its funding. However, the President can 'federalize' all or part of the National Guard in cases of emergency.

None are inherently good or bad. Their actions determine that.

Answer 7

A militia is the National Guard, it is supported by the government and state. The military is supported by the national government and a paramilitary is a small unaffiliated group of soldiers, now more modern day mercenaries. They aren't good or bad. In fact paramilitary groups in Iraq have been really helpful.

Answer 8

A militia is a group of quickly raised citizen soldiers with little training usually controlled at a state(or local) level.

A military is your standing army of professional soldiers controlled at a federal level.

A paramilitary, now a days it's what you call terrorist when you agree with them and don't want to say you support terrorist, you say instead you support paramilitary forces fighting for whatever they are fighting for.

Answer 9

a militia is something like S.F. going into Afganistan and training civilians to fight.
The military would be the authorized soldiers fighting for the country.
And the paramilitary would be something like thay have in colubmia..where they have an insurgent group that also at times fights along side the military.

Answer 10

Militia are local volunteers like that of the minutemen of Concord. Military is professionals, sanctioned, organized, and follows the command of the government. Paramilitary is usually a terrorist group or mercs.