A regular army is the official army of a state or country (the official
armed forces
A military, also known collectively as armed forces, is a heavily armed, highly organized force primarily intended for warfare. It is typically authorized and maintained by a sovereign state, with its members identifiable by their distinct ...
), contrasting with
irregular forces
Irregular military is any non-standard military component that is distinct from a country's national armed forces. Being defined by exclusion, there is significant variance in what comes under the term. It can refer to the type of military orga ...
, such as volunteer irregular militias, private armies,
mercenaries, etc. A regular army usually has the following:
* a
standing army
A standing army is a permanent, often professional, army. It is composed of full-time soldiers who may be either career soldiers or conscripts. It differs from army reserves, who are enrolled for the long term, but activated only during wars o ...
, 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.
A regular army may be:
* a ''conscript army'', including professionals, volunteers and also
conscript
Conscription (also called the draft in the United States) is the state-mandated enlistment of people in a national service, mainly a military service. Conscription dates back to antiquity and it continues in some countries to the present day u ...
s (presence of enforced
conscription, including recruits for the standing army and also a compulsory reserve).
* a ''professional army'', with no conscripts (absence of compulsory service, and presence of a voluntary reserve), is not exactly the same as a standing army, as there are standing armies both in the conscript and the professional models.
In the United Kingdom and the United States, the term ''Regular Army'' means the professional standing active duty army, as different from the reserve component: the
Army Reserve (formerly the
Territorial Army) in the United Kingdom and the
U.S. Army Reserve and the
Army National Guard
The Army National Guard (ARNG), in conjunction with the Air National Guard, is an organized Militia (United States), militia force and a Reserve components of the United States Armed Forces, federal military reserve force of the United States A ...
in the United States.
Bibliography
* Woodward, David. ''Armies of the world, 1854–1914''. London: Sidgwick & Jackson, cop. 1978.
Types of military forces
{{mil-unit-stub