There is a difference between a military and a defense force. A military is a standing army that is capable and available to go to war against another military force and the willingness to invade another country. A defense force is not like a military. Structurally, it may appear the same and seem to have the same purpose, but they are not alike. A defense force is a kind of like a militia, or, like here in the US, a national guard. The purpose the National Guard in the US is not to send them to foreign soil, but instead to be a trained force ready to defend the country and respective from foreign invaders while primarily aiding in humanitarian relief efforts, search rescue and other roles in disaster-struck areas. Granted, an Asgardian Defense Force would take on slightly different roles, but they would still be there to help Asgardia.

Hello, having an armed force does not necessarily mean aggressive, it all depends on who the command, and weapon does not necessarily mean mortal, there are already reduced lethal weapons that might suit the security and defense forces.

Suposing we are a big space nation, we can presume that even then most of asgardians would still live on earth, and not having a soberaign territory, they would live in other countries, so we have to consider two different scenarios. First, the space stations/ habitats; i don't know what you imagine but firearms does not work the same way in space and even if we develop some new ones, firing them inside of the ship is not a good idea at all. Even a minor damage to some life support sistem would cause a dissaster, so an army-like force should only rely on some inhabilitating weaponry and/or some weaponry embedded on the ships for deffending against exterior threats. On the other side we have the "earthlings" (asgardians still on planet earth) living in other Countries. For them there is not much to say, they must follow the laws of the countrie they live in, and my personal oppinion is that Asgardia should not interfere in earths relations/wars thus in doing that it could generate tensions that endanger our fragile space stations and citicens living on earth as the will always be minorities wherever the reside on, and as such, they could be subject to discrimination and hate. pd: unless we have some territory on earth or a lot of treatys, any armed force we have will be invading foreign territory (not good for public relations (? ).

No there's one senario - inside our borders. Anything else is outside of our control, and further not our responsibiltiy. As you rightly point out, we should not interfere with their affairs... We are unlikely to have any borders for some time. Firearms work precisely as they do down here up in space - and this is precisely why they are a bad idea.

It's highly unlikely that any existing nation will want to donate territory. Building our own island(s) is technically feasible, but reasonably expensive.

HI, It may also be wise for people to check out their residential nations laws regarding dual citizenship and membership of a foreign nations military/defence forces prior to Asgardia's formal entry in to the family of the Earths nations. My opinion is, security forces will be required, the form that it takes should evolve as requirements dictate, for example, a good cyber security team is pretty much required already. Projectile weapons in space, always a bad idea. Making a bullet proof (micro-meteor proof) hull isn't that difficult, making be so from both sides is a little more challenging. Derek.

Not particularly, For the outer hull, just increase the thickness. Five meters of NiFe harvested from asteroids, skinned by six inches of titanium by my reckoning will prevail against most things and provide semi-decent radiation shielding. For the inner pressure hull, you have that double skinned and cavity filled to pressurised with an expanding composite metal foam - any holes in that internally should sprout foam to fill the hole, where it sets and seals. Additionally you have seven inches of aluminium/steel composite metal foam ballistic sheilding in sections tesselated across the internal hull.

This ofc doesn't make firearms a good idea.

Yes, about all we'd need about now a cyber security. And forseeably this is all we should really require until we actually have something physical to be defending. Our first Earth-based facilities would require what would be better described as "security guards" than "defence forces".

I agree that there is no need for a military (in the conventional sense) for the Asgardian habitat / station / ship / whatever. Without exception, the various militaries on Earth consumes massive amounts of money and resources and, at the end of the day, is only designed to produce two things: death and destruction.

However, Asgardia should have the ability to defend itself. I can think of a few Earth based nations that would be potentially tempted to jump on that train after all the hard work has been done, particularly if future Asgardian industries (eg. asteroid mining, power generation, technology development, etc) prove to be particularly lucrative. There is no reason though that an Asgardian Defence Force should be the conventional humans with guns.

I would imagine that being a scientifically advanced society, a lot, if not all, of the activities outside of the habitat would be undertaken by robots (autonomous and/or remotely operated). These could be designed and programmed with the secondary purpose of defence that can be activated should a threat present itself. However, this may be getting into a grey area with a possible international ban on Lethal Autonomous Weapons Systems (LAWS) on the horizon.

Any thoughts?

FYI please keep your selves up to date with the concept of Asgardia: The third goal is to create a demilitarized and free scientific base of knowledge in space. This will provide free access to all, especially those from developing countries who do not have space access now. And such access should be free and direct.

Demilitarized - yes. Defenceless - no. To me, there is a difference.

For about the last 15,000 years, humans as a species have proven themselves to be innately greedy and easily capable of abandoning morals and reason in order to get something more shiny, more valuable, more useful, more productive, more powerful, more desirable, etc. If Asgardia is successful as a space nation, it could very easily become a victim of its own success and become a target for those who want that success for themselves. To be blunt, to think any other way is naive.

"Those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it".

unfortunately theres no peace without an army... so we need the strongest army there is

Fighting for peace is kind of like fucking for virginity.

And yes, demiliterised is not defenceless.

Humans are greedy, and lacking morals esp. when in the pursuit of - you know what else they are? Predictable. To be quite blunt, to imagine we would just sit and wait for it to be taken from us is at best naive.

A military is crucial for any nation. And when you talk about militarization of the solar system is already under way. The U.S., China and some European nations have missiles that can shoot down satellites which could threaten Asgardia, so some way to counter these systems is needed. Maybe a military in the sense of troops, companies and battalions is no applicable at the moment, but a dedicated branch of the government tasked with maintaining national Sovereignty is crucial.

There is no point in creating something you can't protect, some one will take it from you, it happens with ideas, it happens all over our history and present.

Everybody should be trained to be ready for battle at anytime, we don't know who is out there and how they would see us, some should be able to be professionals.

If you wait until you need a military to create a military, you will fail, it won't be ready when you need it, it will scatter after the first hit, there's no point to have a quick training just to lose badly, better surrender.

WMD's are a great way to go as well as precision strikes, less "soldiers needed", deadly and kind of a peace keeper.

You don't have to be offensive. But you need to be able to defend and make it clear you are ready to go all the way. Only military man are trained to go all the way, we the people talk to the talk most of the time they walk the walk, and when politicians make a mistake we attack the military.... No!

We should attack the politicians when things go bad, military man fallow orders, from the Chief Executive, appointed by the people, the military protect the people.

On a broader spectrum of things if we had wars on earth we must understand that there will be wars in space. Fighting is natural. I don't like it at all but it seems that's how it is.

Some people live for that, it is clear that military man want to fight and there are millions on this earth. If we have to face an other race we must be prepared for disagreements and most important to defend our interest.

Not having a military or the equivalent in space would be irresponsible.

Have a nice day,

A military is for offensive capacity. Defence forces on the other hand are not military. Again, look to Japan a few decade after WWII.

Surrender is never a clever option unless you're assured they are going to take you somewhere you can cause more damage.

Yes I feel the average citizen could offer support in a situation that demands it, and training can be provided - but the chances of a "land invasion" will be low, as at almost all points off the surface of the Earth we are likely to hold the larger number, and be well established. Any method used to attempt to reach us will leave them incredibly vulnerable, meaning actual combat unlikely.

Any projectile launched from surface will afford more than reasonable mitigation time by a variety of methods. Such things require consideration, but not a great deal as most of these problems are already adequetely solved to the point of dismissing the possiblity of such an attack being sucessful.

If you create a military in space, then instantly you become a viable threat to all your borders - specifically at this point every nation on Earth. You further violate the outer space treaty and advertise your hostile intents.

WMD's are a great way to wipe out a large number of innocent civillians and there is no weapon of mass destruction capable of being used with precision. The clue is in the name: Weapon of Mass Destruction. It doesn't promote peace, it promotes reasons to attack you before you can use them, in novel ways difficult to counter. A weapon unused is a weapon wasted. And you have a weapon that you don't use, expect it to be taken off you and used against you. There's no sense having it unless we actually intend on using it, using it without hesitation, and consider further: attacking the Earth in any measure would directly violate founding ethics of Asgardia.

If we face another race, we'll worry about that when we get there - There's no reason at this stage to think they will be as hostile as humans, further, if required they can learn how agressive and destructive humans can be. That's not something as a species you appear to require to focus on.

there are techniques that can stop any attack we don't need weapons in asgardia (especially free access to weapons )