Political Memes

the entire clone war era was a government that had become largely pacifist and demilitarized

The Jedi were plenty militant as needed. And the drone armies of the Trade Republic were clearly in regular production and use. Then you had the Mandalorian Wars, which had left the Galaxy with a sizeable contingent of heavily armed and armored vagrant mercenaries. And the Outer Rim continued to be a shit-show all through the Republic Era. Hell, the Gungans had (relatively) advanced planetside military.

I don't see anything in the Star Wars cannon to suggest the Republic was pacifist. What fueled the Clone War was simply the outward facing private militaries and commandos and space wizard super-soldiers coming back to the imperial core to duke it out on home turf.

leaving them scrambling and reliant on Palatine’s indoctrinated space cops

Which were pitted against Dooku's army of literal killer robots (which Palpatine also helped commission and field).

"Ah, but if there had just been a third standing army!" doesn't solve the problem. Because the problem was, at its heart, the endless ratcheting of tensions and the failure of the Jedi (specifically Obi Wan and Anakin) to achieve a ceasefire, acceptable terms for surrender, and a new peace.

Jedi wouldn't have been embedded in crowds of space cops to begin with if they hadn't been trapped in a spiraling expansive endless war that collapsed democratic rule and created the Imperial Galactic State.