The 35 most powerful militaries in the world

[G_B_]

China above Russia on what basis?

purely a difference in numbers.. Secondly the chinese have developed a huge arsenal of short range nuclear capable missiles capable of hurting russia in a big way. The russian army is in doldrums. Their threat towards china rests simply with the Bulava missile. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RSM-56_Bulava

[Vilander]

guys there is lots of diff in these numbers. The active troops of India here does not include CAPF CRPF,NSG,Assam Rifles,ITBP etc...that an other 1.4 mil active troops. No to mention Military and paramilitary reserves. Not all Aircraft carriers are same. US AC's are 100 kton, while others like China/Russ havve 65 k ton, Ind/Britan/French have 45 kton range. a Nuke submarine can stay submerged for a year..a conventional one cant. Not all the Navies have nuke strike capability. Only US,France and to lesser extent Uk/Russia can project power, Ind will now be able to project power with Admiral Gorshkov AC and IAC 1 later. Chinese Liaoning is only training carrier.

[Vilander]

To understand US dominance Worlds largest Air-forces combat fighters 1, US airforce 2, US naval Air arm 3,Russian airforce.

[Vilander]

this is a bit meaningless. You need to take a look at the age of the equipment involved as well. USA (daylight) China Russia UK===France==India (daylight) Pakistan North Korea that would be my rankings. Takes everything into account

Check this. http://www.globalfirepower.com/

[Zestian]

I am not aware of such initiatives apart from organizations such as NCC. RSS may be conducting such camps from time to time too :dontknow:

:cantstop: Its not from RSS. Kapil Dev has also done it. Any ways you don't know it then its ok. And NCC was just for school times I guess and nothing more then that. :hmmm:

[Kalia_Test]

You guys are talking of Territorial Army...I am part of that :nice: MSD and Kapil too http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Territorial_Army_%28India%29

[adi B]

pakistan surely must be having more nuclear warheads than us.i remember our defense spendings to be around 38 bn$ some 5 years back,it has increased but we need more expenditures on it with the level of threat around in form of pak and china

[adi B]

wanted to share these facts as well

[Vilander]

wanted to share these facts as well

India has two aircraft carriers ( operational) China has one training carrier. India has 19 submarines. around 800 combat fighters. The numbers in this graphc are old.

[Muloghonto]

Military is not a numbers game really. For e.g., i may have 10 F-22s and you may have 100 F-16s. Who do you think wins that engagement ? Technological superiority matters and matters a lot. Second thing that matters a lot is officer training and readiness. At the RMC ( Royal Military College, Canada's version of West Point), two nations feature prominently in 'what not to do' in battle: Italy (circa WWII) and Pakistan. Take for e.g., battle of Longewalla. As amazing as that defense was (and those Jawaans are total heroes, don't get me wrong), it would have never succeeded if the Pakistani commander was competent. There is no way a competent commander like Patton, Rommel or Manekshaw would lose 150 tanks and 5000 soldiers to 20 men in a bunker in the middle of nowhere and 10 crappy planes visually guiding bombs to target, showing up 8 hours after combat started to 'finish the job'. When defenders pull off crazy victories, like Longewalla, Thermopylae, Jamrud, it leaves out one fact in common: these victories were always precipitated by command failures of the massively superior attacking forces. So to evaluate military strength, in such rankings, is hard. IMO this what we can safely say: there is a clear #1 and #2 in the world. They are: USA and Russia in that order. #1 is un-invadabe by #2 almost completely. Nuclear destruction of #1 would cause similar nuclear destruction to #2. #1 is also capable of invading practically anyone and winning its right to military presence on any soil. #2 and #3 are almost equally far apart as #1 is from #2 : Russia is almost equally uninvadvable by China but can pull off military victories to occupy China to a very limited capacity. Russia can also, realistically speaking, invade almost anyone successfully, owing to the fact that their weak point ( Navy) is of serious threat to any overseas target except USA and geographically they are close enough to any other major naval power to use land & airborne services as main components of invasion. After these two, its not so easy to gauge. China has the most might after the big two on paper but in reality, China has less ability to project power beyond its immediate neighborhood than say UK & France. Same with India. But in most practical scenarios, India and China are bigger threats than UK and France, so the next tier should really be of China, India, UK, France in that general order but subject to change depending on the actual strategic and tactical scenario. After these four, its again a bit murky: how does one differentiate between Israel, Germany, Pakistan, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Japan and Turkey ?! Israel has the best balanced forces and the most combat ready & experienced forces amongst these nations but Germany has, hands down, the best equipped and trained army (i.e., not air force, navy, but the army component of the military) in the world. Saudis have super-nifty gadgets and their air force is super-shiny amazing planes with.....zero experience and questionable capability (they are a real, actual kingdom. Kingdoms have sifaarish problems and there is always that one Royal cousin holding down a job he is not fully qualified for somewhere in the military). Japan is one of the most active 'practice & training missions oriented' military in the world but its so bloody far away that it can't invade anyone outside its immediate neighborhood either. So that group becomes murky. After that, it should be the 'pocket militaries' of Australia, Canada, Sweden, Norway, etc who are the next best- too small and specialist oriented to pose any threat whatsoever to the militaries in the above categories but too good and just big enough to maul anyone else in a straight up fight. This is a pretty huge group and after this group are the militaries that really should not exist because they are over glorified police forces with bigger guns and a few tanks : the tinpot dictatorships in Afica, tiny carribean nations, etc etc.

[sage]

We should be wary but not worried

[Vilander]

Military is not a numbers game really. For e.g., i may have 10 F-22s and you may have 100 F-16s. Who do you think wins that engagement ? Technological superiority matters and matters a lot. Second thing that matters a lot is officer training and readiness. At the RMC ( Royal Military College, Canada's version of West Point), two nations feature prominently in 'what not to do' in battle: Italy (circa WWII) and Pakistan. Take for e.g., battle of Longewalla. As amazing as that defense was (and those Jawaans are total heroes, don't get me wrong), it would have never succeeded if the Pakistani commander was competent. There is no way a competent commander like Patton, Rommel or Manekshaw would lose 150 tanks and 5000 soldiers to 20 men in a bunker in the middle of nowhere and 10 crappy planes visually guiding bombs to target, showing up 8 hours after combat started to 'finish the job'. When defenders pull off crazy victories, like Longewalla, Thermopylae, Jamrud, it leaves out one fact in common: these victories were always precipitated by command failures of the massively superior attacking forces. So to evaluate military strength, in such rankings, is hard. IMO this what we can safely say: there is a clear #1 and #2 in the world. They are: USA and Russia in that order. #1 is un-invadabe by #2 almost completely. Nuclear destruction of #1 would cause similar nuclear destruction to #2. #1 is also capable of invading practically anyone and winning its right to military presence on any soil. #2 and #3 are almost equally far apart as #1 is from #2 : Russia is almost equally uninvadvable by China but can pull off military victories to occupy China to a very limited capacity. Russia can also, realistically speaking, invade almost anyone successfully, owing to the fact that their weak point ( Navy) is of serious threat to any overseas target except USA and geographically they are close enough to any other major naval power to use land & airborne services as main components of invasion. After these two, its not so easy to gauge. China has the most might after the big two on paper but in reality, China has less ability to project power beyond its immediate neighborhood than say UK & France. Same with India. But in most practical scenarios, India and China are bigger threats than UK and France, so the next tier should really be of China, India, UK, France in that general order but subject to change depending on the actual strategic and tactical scenario. After these four, its again a bit murky: how does one differentiate between Israel, Germany, Pakistan, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Japan and Turkey ?! Israel has the best balanced forces and the most combat ready & experienced forces amongst these nations but Germany has, hands down, the best equipped and trained army (i.e., not air force, navy, but the army component of the military) in the world. Saudis have super-nifty gadgets and their air force is super-shiny amazing planes with.....zero experience and questionable capability (they are a real, actual kingdom. Kingdoms have sifaarish problems and there is always that one Royal cousin holding down a job he is not fully qualified for somewhere in the military). Japan is one of the most active 'practice & training missions oriented' military in the world but its so bloody far away that it can't invade anyone outside its immediate neighborhood either. So that group becomes murky. After that, it should be the 'pocket militaries' of Australia, Canada, Sweden, Norway, etc who are the next best- too small and specialist oriented to pose any threat whatsoever to the militaries in the above categories but too good and just big enough to maul anyone else in a straight up fight. This is a pretty huge group and after this group are the militaries that really should not exist because they are over glorified police forces with bigger guns and a few tanks : the tinpot dictatorships in Afica, tiny carribean nations, etc etc.

:two_thumbs_up: good post. You are a sound generalist, are you an author ? oh yeah you are the history professor.

[zen]

http://www.globalfirepower.com/countries-listing.asp

 

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