system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
ELI5:What would happen if a country dismisses it's army?

Suppose a country decides to stop investing billions of dollars in soldiers, building war tech and maintaining military equipment.  In stead it will have lots of founds to focus on health, social imporovement and science. Are there repercurions for this action?
gpt
The question is, which country ?

For a smaller countries in many parts of the world, there would be little effect in the short term. No one would attack them, and if that did happen a larger neighbour would probably help. However, other countries would like them less, because they can no longer help with UN missions. There is also always a chance that neighbours become more aggressive and do attack them.

For a larger countries, they would lose influence in the world. Countries like being friendly to them because it is very nice to have the USA, Russia, China, UK, ... on your side when there is any threat of war. If these countries don't have an army any more, there is little reason to be their friend.

For some countries, no longer having an army would mean that a warlord would take control (Somalia/Congo like countries) or that regions would declare themselves independent (Chechnya / Kurdish areas in Turkey).

Finally, there are some areas in the world where more than one country claims an area belongs to them. In these cases, dismissing an army might lead to the other country occupying that area. (Kashmir area/ Some island groups in Asia/Falklands)