Quote Originally Posted by Stan View Post
Nope, not at all exaggerated. I simply used your version since it was you telling me the role of the military in a sovereign state.

So what's the military's purpose in peacetime?
Support the policy in its quest for good outcomes by making war and sovereignty violations less likely. This can be pursued by putting a hefty risk premium on all foreign aggressions. This risk premium is the visible and widely known probability that an aggression would fail to overcome the resistance (at costs that appear to be acceptable to the aggressor's top decisionmakers).
I emphasised the possibly overlooked part now.

Deterrence works also if a potential aggressor estimates that he will succeed to disarm and occupy the country, but concludes that it's not worth it because it would be too costly.