I think the best measure we have for a military's overall power is it's budget, which reflects the troop size (which on its own, doesn't mean much), the amount of money invested in equipment and training. However, this information does not directly tell us how powerful a military unit of any given size is with respect to units of the same size from other countries. Therefore I propose a new statistic: Defense spending divided by number of active troops. Of course the problem would be that reserve troops would somehow also have to be incorporated. A statistic like that would also reflect to what lengths a government is willing or able to go to protect its own troops. Does anything like this exist out there?

Eh, considering the amount of bacon that's put to poor use with the military, budgeting doesn't seem to be an end-all tell-all measure.

Originally Posted by deerslayer

Eh, considering the amount of bacon that's put to poor use with the military, budgeting doesn't seem to be an end-all tell-all measure.

It may not be entirely accurate. But is there a better means to determine a military's firepower?

Number of weapons? They have listings like that on nationmaster.com for aircraft i think, and some ground equipment.

Originally Posted by WarMachine

Number of weapons? They have listings like that on nationmaster.com for aircraft i think, and some ground equipment.

Yes, but again, number of weapons can be as insignificant as number of troops if the quality of weapons is not respected. I think China has more fighter planes than the US, but only a few of them are on par with US aircraft (maybe the J-10 and a couple others)

Right, forgot the advanceness part of it. Well i suppose you could just estimate it by looking at how much a piece of equipment costs and go from there. If a jet is worth over a 100 million dollars then you expect it to be fairly advanced. I guess it all boils down to reputation like the USA is obviously advanced and china is trying to be above average in its capabilities and zimbabwe isn't advanced at all. The best indicator is the economic prosperity of the country and how that ttranslates into more refined and expensive euipment. Some exceptions like north korea and pakistan could skew it a bit, but it's mostly true.

well, the best measure of all of the above would be defined in the military's operating doctrine and SOPs. simple answer.

It's not always what you have that counts, it is the quality of the people that use it, and how they use it counts for even more.

When it comes to money for hardward you have to be careful of how you compare the past with the current.

The amount of money it takes now seems like more than in the past, and may be, but you also have to figure that a new car in the 40's went for hundreds of dollars and not they can cost up to $200,000, or more, depending on what you get. Bottom line with nothing or or top of the line with everything.

A good measure for military advancedness is the ability of power projection. What power can a military project to any place on the globe within 30 minutes? How much within a day? How much within 3 months?

Thats a good measure because it exposes imbalances. If you have thousands of tanks but lack logistics, planes and ships (or even gas) then your army is not really advanced, because it can only be used in your respective region and is only effective against an enemy of the same kind.