The only way to find out who is better is to have the various armies duke it out. That's the only real way to know. Short of that, I think that the best way would be to see which army completes it's objectives with the least casualties. I don't know how I would find that out, but that would be the best, I think.

LEAST CASUALTIES?! That, my friend, is why we aren't winning the GWOT any time soon!

This article voices my frustration:

Originally Posted by jpodhoretz@gmail.com

TOO NICE TO WIN? ISRAEL'S DILEMMA

New York Post

July 25, 2006 -- WHAT if liberal democracies have now evolved to a point where they can no longer wage war effectively because they have achieved a level of humanitarian concern for others that dwarfs any really cold-eyed pursuit of their own national interests?

What if the universalist idea of liberal democracy - the idea that all people are created equal - has sunk in so deeply that we no longer assign special value to the lives and interests of our own people as opposed to those in other countries?

What if this triumph of universalism is demonstrated by the Left's insistence that American and Israeli military actions marked by an extraordinary concern for preventing civilian casualties are in fact unacceptably brutal? And is also apparent in the Right's claim that a war against a country has nothing to do with the people but only with that country's leaders?

Can any war be won when this is the nature of the discussion in the countries fighting the war? Can any war be won when one of the combatants voluntarily limits itself in this manner?

Could World War II have been won by Britain and the United States if the two countries did not have it in them to firebomb Dresden and nuke Hiroshima and Nagasaki? Didn't the willingness of their leaders to inflict mass casualties on civilians indicate a cold-eyed singleness of purpose that helped break the will and the back of their enemies? Didn't that singleness of purpose extend down to the populations in those countries in those days, who would have and did support almost any action at any time that would lead to the deaths of Germans and Japanese?

What if the tactical mistake we made in Iraq was that we didn't kill enough Sunnis in the early going to intimidate them and make them so afraid of us they would go along with anything? Wasn't the survival of Sunni men between the ages of 15 and 35 the reason there was an insurgency and the basic cause of the sectarian violence now?

If you can't imagine George W. Bush issuing such an order, is there any American leader you could imagine doing so?

And if America can't do it, can Israel? Could Israel - even hardy, strong, universally conscripted Israel - possibly stomach the bloodshed that would accompany the total destruction of Hezbollah?

If Lebanon's 300-plus civilian casualties are already rocking the world, what if it would take 10,000 civilian casualties to finish off Hezbollah? Could Israel inflict that kind of damage on Lebanon - not because of world opinion, but because of its own modern sensibilities and its understanding of the value of every human life?

Where do these questions lead us?

What if Israel's caution about casualties among its own soldiers and Lebanese civilians has demonstrated to Hezbollah and Hamas that as long as they can duck and cover when the missiles fly and the bombs fall, they can survive and possibly even thrive?

What if Israel has every capability of achieving its aim, but cannot unleash itself against a foe more dangerous, more unscrupulous, more unprincipled and more barbaric than even the monstrous leaders of the Intifada it managed to quell after years of suicide attacks?

And as for the United States, what if we have every tool at our disposal to win a war - every weapons system we could want manned by the most superbly trained military in history - except the ability to match or exceed our antagonists in ruthlessness?

Is this the horrifying paradox of 21st century warfare? If Israel and the United States cannot be defeated militarily in any conventional sense, have our foes discovered a new way to win? Are they seeking victory through demoralization alone - by daring us to match them in barbarity and knowing we will fail?

Are we becoming unwitting participants in their victory and our defeat? Can it be that the moral greatness of our civilization - its astonishing focus on the value of the individual above all - is endangering the future of our civilization as well?

Then who will man the artillery? Who will pilot the jet fighters? Who will hold the territories? Machines? Ok then, who will control, pilot, and repair those machines? I agree that having millions of soldiers will not win a war straight up, but having a reasonable force with backup is very necessary.

That is a very narrow minded view of warfare, and one that I have noticed prevails in many people who are not in the military. It's not the way to win modern wars.

There are many examples of small forces defeating larger ones and it is part of the doctrine Australia works with because we are a small Army.

Yes you obviously need people to man your guns, your planes, your vehicles, and to support your efforts. You can have as many of them as you want, but if you can't fight intelligently you will not win. You need to know how to use your BOS's (Battle Operating Systems) correctly and in conjunction with each-other to best effect.

You can defeat an enemy by targeting their critical vulnerabilities.... Not their strengths.

To quote Sir D'Arcy Wentworth "Ten men wisely led, will beat a hundred without a head".

What about MAD? I think the situation in Iraq and Afghanistan somewhat proves that advanced technology doesn't necessarily mean problems solved. Even the Israelis high military command recently (like yesterday) admitted that even with their missile strikes from the air and sea might not be enough to stop/destroy Hizbollah, and they be considering a ground invasion. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for technology too (I like toys....), but I think intelligence would be ranked first in my book.

This comment pretty much is in direct disagreement with your comment in response to me.
From what your saying here recon, surveillance and intelligence is most important.... so if you can defeat this BOS in an enemy... you can defeat them. To defeat the ISR BOS you don't need masses of guns and men.

Really look at it this way... Every different enemy has a different critical vulnerability, and it changes with every mission and at every level. You can't say one thing is more important than another, but you can say that they can be defeated through intelligent methods, not mass methods.

In China, there is an old saying, I don't konw whether I can translate it accurately, "No matter how big name you are,come on ,take a sword to compete for yourself ".
I think there are many matches among different national armies in modern times. Maybe they are also another proof to compare one army to another. But of course,I know it is not every army to have the chance to face each other.

Originally Posted by AussieNick

This comment pretty much is in direct disagreement with your comment in response to me.
From what your saying here recon, surveillance and intelligence is most important.... so if you can defeat this BOS in an enemy... you can defeat them. To defeat the ISR BOS you don't need masses of guns and men.

Really look at it this way... Every different enemy has a different critical vulnerability, and it changes with every mission and at every level. You can't say one thing is more important than another, but you can say that they can be defeated through intelligent methods, not mass methods.

Ok ok, my final point/summation of everything is that intelligence is the most important aspect to any military. In regard to my comment about manpower, I took it as though you said that manpower does not matter to any military, to which I disagree. It's not the most important factor, but I believe it to be a key factor in an effective military. If it weren't so, then why would armies need recruiting quotas? You can have the nuttiest weapons available and all the updated BOS for them, but what good is it if you have depleted manpower?

Ok ok, my final point/summation of everything is that intelligence is the most important aspect to any military. In regard to my comment about manpower, I took it as though you said that manpower does not matter to any military, to which I disagree. It's not the most important factor, but I believe it to be a key factor in an effective military. If it weren't so, then why would armies need recruiting quotas? You can have the nuttiest weapons available and all the updated BOS for them, but what good is it if you have depleted manpower?

Firstly, I think you've got the wrong idea of what a BOS is. It is a battle operating system. There are lots of different ones;
CSS - Combat Service Support (including catering through to POL)
C3 - Command, Control and Communications (from batteries for your radios through to divisional command)
ISR- Intel, Surveillance and Recon (exactly what it sounds like)

They go on and on. Basically it is a way of categorising every part of the military, and it is used as part of the IMAP process.

As for man power, I dunno how many times I'm going to tell people this. Man power, in the end doesn't mean jack if you know how to exploit the weakness of your enemy. It also comes down to the Fighting Power of your army as well, which I have explained before in other posts. It doesn't mean "we've got 300 Abrams, and 5000 grunts ready to rock and roll. It means the balance between Moral Authority, Knowledge, and Firepower (once again this doesn't mean manpower).

I won't go into it in too much depth because it is all fairly high level staff planning analytical type stuff, but worth thinking about rather than just numbers. History proves numbers don't do it.

Military technology, training, battlefield experience and the ability of the army to work well together. The idea that smaller could be better isn't a new concept. The Greeks repeatedly beat the Persians against enormous numerical odds. The Roman Legions were notorious for beating forces significantly larger than theirs because of their incredible ability to work together in battle. The Mongols carved out one of the largest empires in the history of the world and did so by toughness, skill and teamwork. They almost never had numerical superiority especially in their larger battles. The British Empire demonstrated the same principals as the Romans and also showed the effective use of superior technology.

But to say that numbers are meaningless? Countless examples, both ancient and modern have proven this to be false. Numbers matter. They just aren't the entire picture. Not by a long shot.

Especially now with technology advancing like it is.

Originally Posted by godofthunder9010

But to say that numbers are meaningless? Countless examples, both ancient and modern have proven this to be false. Numbers matter. They just aren't the entire picture. Not by a long shot.

That's pretty much what I'm trying to say.

And what I'm trying to say, is that if you follow traditional war fighting doctrine then yes, your numbers do make a difference.

If you fight smart, then having low numbers (even being heavily outnumbered) isn't always a problem, and can even be an advantage.