Not having standing armies also creates structural problems (mostly getting invaded). There are only 21 countries without a standing army, and they're almost all micronations with <200k population (mostly tiny islands). Iceland is the only one of them with a GDP per capita worth mentioning, but it's also part of Nato, the largest military alliance in the world.
It's a permanent professional army, where are you getting this stuff? Switzerland has an air force and everything. They also have a large trained citizen militia but it's supported by a backbone of a professional standing army.
> They also have a large trained citizen militia but it's supported by a backbone of a professional standing army.
Less than 10% are full timers, the vast majority are conscripts and volunteers. Even officers generally aren't full timers[1].
All I'm saying is, there's a spectrum of 'Complete citizen militia, as envisioned by the framers of the US Constitution' all the way over to 'Standing army as it exists in the US today', and Switzerland is obviously much closer to the former than the latter.
This is why we originally instituted mandatory military service here in Sweden. To ensure that the army isn't representative of some special class, e.g. the nobility or the burghers etc.
If you have a standing army, that creates a whole rats nest of problems.
And ps, I've talked to people who think we shouldn't have a standing army, and I frankly think they're insane.