Military Powers

In my opinion, it's not as much about the man power your force has, but rather what your force has in terms of inventories,(aircraft, boats, weapons tech.)resources(manufacturing plants,crude oil etc), and allies. The area where the United states is weakest right now would have to be allies. We are..erm...not very popular with the world right now. And that could hurt us with the wrong move.
 
The area where the United states is weakest right now would have to be allies. We are..erm...not very popular with the world right now. And that could hurt us with the wrong move.
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On the surface yeh, but our tradiotnal alliances are still strong.

Also I dont think Nepal should be above South Afira, this list is retarded.

Also I dont think Nepal should be in the top 35
 
Look at the NOTE. It says that nuclear weapons, military experience, and training are not taken into account...Perhaps thats why.
 
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Interesting find! I think the numbers are accurate only up to a certain extent. The numbers are really only a comparison of raw resources. I am still, however, bookmarking that globalfirepower site. Really fun to read through.
 
Very interesting to see how insanely out of reach India and China are in terms of available manpower. Seems that statistic would scare the crap outa Pakistan, for instance.

Henderson hits a very important point of course. Numbers are extremely misleading. Technology, training and battlefield experience are not taken into account. Of course, those are very difficult to measure. United States makes a strong showing in lots of areas of course.

Who knew Canada had the second largest proven oil reserves??? Must be oil that's hard to get to, or Canada would be insanely wealthy from oil exports.

Very surprising that Israel has more tanks than China.

It's also interesting that the USA has insanely more aircraft than anyone else. Not too surprised that Russia and China have the next highest numbers.

I think everyone already knew that Russia had an absolutely insanely huge tank force.

Looks like China is catching up with the USA in GDP faster than I thought. They've doubled their GDP since the last statistics I'd seen on it.

Pretty surprising that North Korea rates so well on Naval vessels. I get the feeling that number is misleading and that they have a lot of very outdated ships in service.
 
I think I prefer this list:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_military_expenditures

However I'd lump all countries with nuclear weapons on the top. Also, Russia should be 3rd, not 4th or 9th.

godofthunder9010 said:
Very interesting to see how insanely out of reach India and China are in terms of available manpower.
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Yes but it's even more interesting to see how insanely out of reach the United States is in terms of military expenditure. They spend 49% of the entire world.
 
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Mohmar Deathstrike said:
Yes but it's even more interesting to see how insanely out of reach the United States is in terms of military expenditure. They spend 49% of the entire world.
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What can we say...We're just rich like that...:wink:
 
More important than numbers is actual fighting power. It is a intangible thing, it is made up of three things:
1. Moral Authority
2. Knowledge
3. Physical

This is how a nation who is outnumbered or technically inferior can often defeat the mightier nation. This is the kind of thing commanders want to know, not how many tanks they've got... they want to know what a units "fighting power" is.

What these lists do is just cater to math-ama-tactics.
 
C/1Lt Henderson said:
What can we say...We're just rich like that...:wink:
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I was just about to say the same thing. The GDP of the US is the combined total of several other nations depending on which countries you choose to add. If the US makes more money, why shouldn't it be allowed to spend more? Why should its spending on defense be limited if it has more to lose than any other nation? It's like a rich person spending money on the best security system available to defend his/her home and posessions he/she spent so much time and effort achieving.

I think its a big ass crock to compare dollar amounts. A better way to measure how much a country spends on defense is the look at the percentage of their GDP they spend. The more money a country has, the more they should be able to spend. If you take the US for example, let's say they make $100 a year. According to these stats, they only spend $4-5 on defense whereas other countries spend like $6-9 of their $100. If you have a bigger wallet, then of course you're going to be spending more in terms of dollar amounts but that's because you can afford to.

As for China, I strongly suggest they stop spending money to try to scare Taiwan and start spending money on their environmental problems. Experts predict that China's two major rivers (the Yangtze and the Yellow) will be so polluted that by the year 2025, they will be useless.

Rabs said:
Soviet doctrine.
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I am not familiar with the Soviet doctrine. Elaborate please, Rabs?
 
I am not familiar with the Soviet doctrine. Elaborate please, Rabs?
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Lol i really dont know, but ever since ww2 the soviets had an obsession with HUGE amounts of arty. Countires that got there tactics from them also have large amounts like N.Korea,China,Iran and pre GW1 Iraq etc.
 
godofthunder9010 said:
Excellent point on expenditure Mohmar sir.
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Thank you god of thunder (there's lightning and thunder where I am right now :D)
We should still keep in mind that money can be mismanaged, so it's not a perfect way of measuring miltiary strength :)
C/1Lt Henderson said:
What can we say...We're just rich like that...:wink:
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Well Japan is rich enough to spend a bit less than a quarter of world-expenditure, yet they choose to spend only 1% of their GDP on military. :)
ASTRALdragon said:
It's like a rich person spending money on the best security system available to defend his/her home and posessions he/she spent so much time and effort achieving.
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And to outsmart the security systems of other people's homes :D
AussieNick said:
they want to know what a units "fighting power" is.
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Yeah, I stated this in another thread.
 
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Mohmar Deathstrike said:
Well Japan is rich enough to spend a bit less than a quarter of world-expenditure, yet they choose to spend only 1% of their GDP on military. :)
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i think japan is still limited militarily on what they can have from the treaty they signed after WWII. im not sure i will try to find out and post it here.
 
therise21 said:
i think japan is still limited militarily on what they can have from the treaty they signed after WWII. im not sure i will try to find out and post it here.
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Not to mention also that Japan is under the American nuclear umbrella... :)
 
therise21 said:
i think japan is still limited militarily on what they can have from the treaty they signed after WWII. im not sure i will try to find out and post it here.
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Yeh, that treaty is called the Japanese Constitution.
ASTRALdragon said:
Not to mention also that Japan is under the American nuclear umbrella... :)
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But they don't have American nukes on their territorry.
 
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