This, of course, was the Confederate military ideal: A valiant army of white men supported by the uncompensated labor of enslaved African Americans.
In Parliament, politicians have debated ending conscription, threatening the post-Nazi ideal of an army of ordinary citizens, as German soldiers fight in Afghanistan.
Fragile ideals about the army and the country it serves have been wounded.
A growing combination of republican and Positivist ideals among the army's junior and mid-level officer ranks, however, began to form a serious threat to the monarchy.
If the summit of the government's ambition is to see out a full term, then a chastened army becomes the ideal partner.
Hezbollah's reduced popularity and its reliance on the army set an ideal foundation for the most important task facing the new government: creating a credible defense plan.
"It is not ideal to have a foreign army here, but look at the situation," said Énide Edoword, 24, a waitress who was standing in a camp of displaced people.
The same pattern can be seen in other countries across the greater Middle East: a flawed national army is not ideal, but it is usually better than chaos or a vacuum that can be filled by suicidal militants and their patron states.
Indra, who is searching for an ideal Devasenapati (commander of the army of the gods), reaches the place where Devasena is held captive.
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr would often quote the French author, Victor Hugo: "More powerful that the March of Mighty Armies is an Ideal Whose Time Has Come".
