Pony Peeves #1 · 12:10am Nov 19th, 2015
One of the things that bug me about the My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic fandom is how many people seem to believe that just because we havn't seen any, Equestria has no military forces outside of its Royal Guard who protect the princesses. Just how stupid of an idea is that? By now, I think we can all agree that while Equestria and the world it is located in (lets just call it Equus for now) is in many ways a better world than our own, it is by no means a perfect paradise. It has pleanty of its own problems, such as foreign countries who would go to war with them over the most rediculous reasons (Yakyakistan), entire races of monsters (the Changelings), and extremist cultists (Starlight Glimmer). Many writers who support the "Demilitarized Equestria" theory believe that to do so would prevent rival countries from seeing it as a threat and thus refrain from attacking. How naive can you get? There are hundred of "reasons" for a country to go to war with another besides feeling threatened. It could be for politics, religion, greed, or any number of things. If other countries saw one without any soldiers defending its boarders, they're not going to think "oh hey, those guys are no threat to us, let's leave them alone." They're going to think "Ha Ha! Look at those idiots without any troops! Lets invade them and take everything they have!"
Now, several authors insist that Equestria dosn't need an army to defend it because they have the Elements of Harmony and two princesses with power over the heavens themselves. First of all, the Elements were dormant for over a thousand years. Secondly, while Celestia and Luna are indeed powerful, they are by no means invincible, as seen in A Conterlot Wedding. Also, they cannot be in two places at once, so if an invading army attacks while their tucked away in their castle, how many innocent ponies must die before they arrive to put a stop to it?
Now I know of at least one author who tries to get around these problems by creating a small order of knights to, each with the power to annihilate a small army, to deal with Equestria's enemies. While I do not object to the idea itself, relying entirely on such a group to the exclusion of all else has the same problems as mentioned with the princesses; plus if Equestria has such champions, who's to say their enemies won't have them as well? And don't say "because good is stronger than evil just because it is," that always ruins a story.
Post your own thoughts and opinions.
I believe that Equestria does have a military, and that the Royal Guard is just a generalized name for it. Also that the Wonderbolts are a part of said military, at least in part.
Just because we don't see their full extent in the show don't mean they don't exist.
That's what I implied at the beginning.
I suspect that the canon explanation is that Celestia and Luna are, together, stronger than any army. Magically powerful on a level no unicorn can imagine, functionally immortal and invulnerable and with thousands of years of arcane and secular knowledge, they can out-think and out-shoot any mortal army many times over.
Check out my blog post for more of my thoughts on this matter.