A country with no army

The other day I read a news that caught my attention; Costa Rica's president, Oscar Arias, told the president of Uruguay, José Mujica, that the Southamerican country should eliminate its army because there is no reason for them to have it.

Costa Rica has no army since 1948 and it seems to have been trying to convince other countries to do as them; they want to show the world they have no problems with anyone and all they want is peace.

This made me think about how the world would be without army. Would we feel happier? Or would we feel unprotected and with fear? I don't know a lot about army policies, but I believe that the army originated because people felt they needed some protection and because it was necessary to have something to demonstrate power. Nowadays, I don't really think about army as something really important because countries don't seek anymore to fight or to gain territory, but they seek to advance in technology and give people rights and opportunities. So maybe in Costa Rica this was the reason why the army disappeared, because they had no enemies that could cause them problems.

But for example, what about Mexico? If the army disappeared in Mexico I believe we all would feel fear because we know that the army tries, at least, to eliminate all those narcotrafficants or illegal trading or criminals. I believe we are not still advanced enought to say that we can handle ourselves completely without an army because we still believe that the army is going to protect us in some way.

I personally think that in a future, countries will start reducing its army in order for them to be able to spend more money in education, technology, etc.; things that they are now interesed in. It may be possible that we will no longer have wars or international conflicts like those that happened in past centuries, but we still should be aware about the problems we face, and because of this, we still need a type of army, or a group of people, that is able to protect us whenever we need help.