# How many personnel in the US armed forces?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-personnel-in-the-us-armed-forces/148420>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [January 14, 2003, 1:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-personnel-in-the-us-armed-forces/148420 "2003-01-14T01:23:54Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 6\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Jojo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ecd19e/32.png) [@Jojo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jojo)\
**Post date:** [January 14, 2003, 1:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-personnel-in-the-us-armed-forces/148420/1 "2003-01-14T01:23:54Z")

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I’m sure I’m being really dumb in my googling but I can’t seem to locate a site that gives me the numbers of troops in the US army or other world armies for that matter.

I’m interested in this because I read that the US is to send another 60 000 troops to the Gulf bringing the total to 150 000 troops so I just wondered how many troops there were in the army.

Also I once heard that the Chinese army has 1 million troops.

Is there a site that gives the troop numbers of all the world’s armies? I’m sure there must be and I’m just not putting the right terms into google. Can anyone direct me to such a site?

Thanks for any help.

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**Author:** ![Speaker\_for\_the\_Dead](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c77e96/32.png) [@Speaker\_for\_the\_Dead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Speaker_for_the_Dead)\
**Post date:** [January 14, 2003, 1:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-personnel-in-the-us-armed-forces/148420/2 "2003-01-14T01:41:50Z")

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Well, I know it’s not a top-notch cite, but in “A Beautiful Mind,” they mention at one point that the Chinese military has a standing army of 2.8 million men. At that point it’s some time in the 50’s or 60’s.

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**Author:** ![Ringo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/779978/32.png) [@Ringo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ringo)\
**Post date:** [January 14, 2003, 1:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-personnel-in-the-us-armed-forces/148420/3 "2003-01-14T01:43:12Z")

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[Personnel Tables](http://www.defenselink.mil/execsec/adr2001/C.pdf) for the U.S. military, FY 1989-2000 (requires Adobe Acrobat).

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**Author:** ![UncleBill](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/d26b3c/32.png) [@UncleBill](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UncleBill)\
**Post date:** [January 14, 2003, 2:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-personnel-in-the-us-armed-forces/148420/4 "2003-01-14T02:27:46Z")

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From **Ringo** ’s cite, if you don’t have Acrobat, at the end of FY2000 (Sep 30, 2000), there were 1,384,400 on active duty in the four armed services, and 864,600 in the Selected Reserves.

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**Author:** ![cdhostage](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/c6cbf5/32.png) [@cdhostage](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cdhostage)\
**Post date:** [January 14, 2003, 2:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-personnel-in-the-us-armed-forces/148420/5 "2003-01-14T02:53:38Z")

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So about 2 million people who can be ready to fight in a short amount of time.

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**Author:** ![Ringo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/779978/32.png) [@Ringo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ringo)\
**Post date:** [January 14, 2003, 4:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-personnel-in-the-us-armed-forces/148420/6 "2003-01-14T04:42:35Z")

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**UncleBill** , thanks, I probably should have posted the numbers.

Interesting to note that the military has shrunk by about a third over the span of that table (EOFY 1989 Active = 2,130,200 \> EOFY 2000 Active = 1,384,400; EOFY 1989 Reserve = 1,170,600 \> EOFY 2000 Reserve = 864,600).