In
the preponderant majority of situations where there was only one wage
earner per family, therefore, per capita defense costs exceeded
everything that the family had available for all uses except food and
shelter.

The 50,000 men in the regular and security forces represent about 2.4
percent of the population, but each annual draft takes a number that is
equal to roughly one-half of the young men that become nineteen years
old during the year. There is no reliable information as to how
willingly the average citizen performs his military service or whether
or not his contribution is appreciated by the remainder of the people.
The controlled-communications media do everything possible to promote
good morale among those in the service and to show that the public
supports them.

FOREIGN MILITARY RELATIONS

Small, underdeveloped, and suffering continually from an unfavorable
balance of trade, Albania has always needed assistance to maintain even
a small military force. Accepting aid from Italy before World War II
resulted in a severe curtailment of national initiative in the
employment of the forces and probably contributed to their immobility at
the time of the Italian invasion in 1939.

Between 1945 and 1948 Yugoslavia's control over Albania's forces was
tighter than Italy's had been. In addition to technical advisers and
instructors in regular service units, the Communist Party organization
provided an effective vehicle for controlling the reliability of
personnel, particularly the military leadership.

Because the Soviet Union, like Italy, was physically separated from the
country it was a more desirable ally than neighboring Yugoslavia had
been. It was nonetheless able to maintain tighter controls over Albanian
forces than either Yugoslavia or Italy had achieved. General Petrit
Dume, who was commander of the People's Army during its dependence on
the Soviet Union and still was in 1970, had said in November of 1952
that his force was an integral part of the Soviet Army.

Albania became one of the original Warsaw Treaty Organization members in
1955. Separated from the other signatories, its forces were unable to
participate in the pact's field exercises and after 1961, because of its
rift with the Soviet Union, was not invited to attend the organization's
meetings. In 1968, protesting the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia,
Albania formally withdrew from the pact.

Communist China was Albania's only military a