Being an American, I assume that the United States is the world’s principal military power and sole superpower.
And I would guess that Russia would be in second place, by virtue of its huge nuclear arsenal and historic presence in space. But the decline in their naval and long range capabilities, aging tanks and artillery, severe budget restraints, and the presence of rebellious areas within Russian territory suggest that Russia may no longer be even the second power on the globe, much less a true “superpower”.
China has a vast population, and when reserves are included, the largest armed forces in the world by far. Plus they have nuclear weapons, and a budding space program. On the other hand, their naval and air capabilities are rather weak. Also China also has deep divisions in the interior; extreme rural poverty, Muslim and Tibetan separatists and so on. Plus, despite some fears on the part of the United States, China as of now does not seem to interested in any military expansion beyond Taiwan, which China sees as an “internal” matter of course.
The United Kingdom may no longer have an empire, but they still have a military presence on nearly every continent and in every ocean. They have extensive intelligence gathering, nuclear weapons, sophisticated aircraft, and well trained personel. France has space technology and a sizable nuclear arsenal, and may integrate its capabilities with other European countries in the near future. Germany and Japan have the manpower, technology, and expertise to be military powers, but have been reluctant to exercise force beyond their borders until recently. Could they easily rearm and become major powers? Maybe a country such as India or Pakistan could be ranked too. They certainly have nuclear weapons, but I am not sure if they have much in the way of long range naval and air capabilities, or modern army tanks and artillery. And is Israel as powerful, relatively speaking, as it was in the Six Day War and the Yom Kippur War?
So how would you rank the military powers of the world? I know that we no longer live in the days of Bismarck, but lately a need for realpolitik (as seen in America’s overnight “alliance” with Pakistan, and Bush’s sudden courting of China), has made it very necessary to take new a look at how the world stacks up geopolitically.
I thought that after the change of government, South Africa dismantled their nuclear weapons program and greatly reduced the size of their armed forces, and withdrew forces from Angola, Mozambique and other areas as well.
I suppose North and South Korea, Vietnam, Argentina, Chile, Brazil, Egypt, Italy, and Iran may rank too…I don’t mean to leave anyone out.
I knew about the dismantling of the nuclear arsenal (it was before hand-over) but not of the reduction of the armed forces generally. That makes sense given there seem to be South African mercenaries throughout Africa (intuitively one would lead to the other). I suspect you are right.
I think you better ask the Philippines, Viet Nam, Malaysia, Brunei, Korea and Japan about this one. Look up the Mischief Reef. There are indications that China is trying to gain the expertise for a deep water navy, specifically aircraft carriers. There are oil fields that they covet all over the Pacific.
But for the OP, China is at best a regional military force. Actually, they would have trouble projecting much beyond their own borders.
China can now project its power about 1000 miles past its borders. It has long-range aircraft and mid-air refueling capacity. And according to the CIA China is undergoing a large military buildup and will probably be a superpower within 10-15 years.
There’s a lot of countries that play great at home but have no road game. China’s an example of this; Israel’s another. Both are formidable, maybe even unbeatable, within their own borders; but neither could easily sustain a major opposed military operation a thousand miles away from their bases.
So in terms of power projection, the United States is indeed number one. Relatively speaking there is no number two. But the UK and France have shown they can send troops anywhere in the world. Russia, while their military has seriously declined in the last decade, probably could still front a major expedition.
Germany and Japan are prohibited by their constitutions from sending troops anywhere for any reason. Obviously their constitutions were written mostly by the allies post WWII so you can see where that came from.
Some 50 years later those restrictions have been eased just a bit but mostly Germany and Japan can only send non-military aid without sending any of their militaries proper. IIRC this even prevents them from being a part of UN peace keeping operations but that might be one place where the restrictions are being eased just a bit.
Interestingly the US has agitated for getting these restrictions dropped. We are frankly tired of the expense of defending these nations and wish they could pick-up some of the tab. Russia, being a major signatory to the surrender agreements has generally blocked this since, at least in the past, they have been happy to have the US throw money at this issue rather than somewhere else that might threaten Russian interests. In the post Cold War era I am no longer certain what Russia’s stance is. Russia does maintain control over some islands north of Japan that historically belonged to Japan so Russia may not like the idea of Japan being able to threaten to take back those islands.
All of that said I have heard (I don’t remember where) that the Japanese SDF (Self-Defense Force) constitutes quite a powerful military in its own right. Certainly they get to play with all the best military toys so they are good to go on that front. However, Japan, for all its bitching (much justified) about US military bases such as those on Okinawa, isn’t really eager to take the reins of military protection for itself either. Militaries are hideously expensive so as long as the US foots the bill so much the better for them. Heck…not only does the US bear the cost of maintaining our military in Japan we pay Japan for the pleasure as well (such as rent for the land we use which is quite expensive in its own right).
Japan and Germany represent economies second only to the US and they certainly possess the engineering and scientific knowhow to build a modern and very capable military if they wished. Left to their own devices and assuming cost was no object, I’d imagine they could field forces to rival the US if they wished. That isn’t likely to happen in the forseeable future however but both of those countries are still quite formidable within their own borders so I’d have to rank them pretty high as military powers even if they aren’t technically allowed to use them for anything but self-defense.
I thought that Germany deployed peacekeeping troops to the Balkans recently.
As for Japan, their navy has AEGIS destroyers and is probably second to the US as a naval force in the Pacific. But they have no aircraft carriers and in any case, the ships are for self-defense only.
I was under the impression that the Koreas maintain huge armies, but that they were mostly occupied with staring at each other across the border - I don’t know how conducive that is to developing the ability to do anything away from the home field, as Little Nemo put it.
After that it gets hazy, but I would definitely place nuclear powers ahead of non-nukes.
India
Pakistan
Israel
North Korea
#10 is tough. You can make arguments for Japan and Germany, but frankly their militaries will always have limited capability until some dictator takes over one of those countries.
In sheer numbers, Indonesia cannot be ignored.
Without nukes Iraq I think is fodder. Iran’s army might be substantial, but they seem like they may be poorly trained. One country that could have a kick ass military is 100,000,000+ Nigeria, and indeed they have taken quite a role in African peace keeping missions, however that country is too disorganized.
I’m sure Egypt and Syria could give other contries a run for their money, but they are too small. Brazil is untested, and Argentia is falling into chaos. Libya couldn’t beat Chad. South Africa might be a Top 10 candidate but . . . .
But in terms of toughness and technology supplied thanks to their affiliation with NATO, I’d give #10 to Turkey.
Really, there is only ONE military superpower right now.
From the CIA FactBook:
US: $276.7 billion (FY99 est.)
China: $12.608 billion (FY99);
(“note - China’s real defense spending may be several times higher than the official figure because a number of significant items are funded elsewhere”)
Note how they are propping up an non-existing threat? And how they won’t even mention Russia because it’s budget is too damn low?
33,450M$US for China (possibly $55 billion, if you believe cato.org)
254,630M$US for US
50,000M$US for Russia (low of ~18,000M$US)
It really makes me laugh when the U.S. medias are propping China, fucking North Korea (4,000M$US) and other small-timers as credible threats to the invincible U.S.
(An invincibility which might also explain why some hostile countries out there are resorting to terrorism… Really, what else can they do? Charge US carriers with guns?)
And the only way China is going to do something foolish like invading Taiwan is if their pride is cornered by the U.S. Otherwise, they are too busy making money to bother…
You said a mouthful. A good argument against ever being an indomitable superpower again. I can only hope that China comes under some kind of terrorist attack. That way, they would learn the same lesson as the U.S., rather than continue building up, Cold War style, while the U.S. adapts to the 21st Century threat.
Argentina? Ja. We are sending ours soldiers home each weekend to save money. I don’t complaint a country with no enemies doesn’t need an army. And besides to the americans you spent and are spending a barbaric sum of money in your army? for what? your tin soldiers couldn’t even protect your principal headquarter.
Forgive me, but I’m afraid I don’t understand your point.
Gracious!
It just leapt out and hit me in the forehead! Cutting out the derogatory references to the United States’s military and military spending, you’re saying that Argentina isn’t a military power! I should have seen it. It’s not really germaine, but I can see that you at least gave your best effort.
As to said derogation, I can think of some choice retorts, but decorum prevents me.
re: the OP
Should we credit nations as powerful simply because they have nuclear weapons? Let’s say we have two nations, A and B. Nation A has a relatively weak conventional military, but has a store of nuclear warheads (and a method of delivering them), whereas nation B has a strong conventional military, but no nukes. If they go to war, nation B will easily defeat nation A unless nation A uses it’s nuclear weapons. So, who is stronger? It would seem that, for us to rank nation A as stronger, we must assume it will use it’s nukes.
Is this a valid assumption? (Barring conflicts based on the extermination of one country or the other.)
[!
It just leapt out and hit me in the forehead! Cutting out the derogatory references to the United States’s military and military spending, you’re saying that Argentina isn’t a military power! I should have seen it. It’s not really germaine, but I can see that you at least gave your best effort
Two things einstein.
First, Someone named argentina as a (in military terms) powerfull country. That was why I made my first statemen.
The second, for years we have hear you brag about how powerfull you are, about the fact that you can take the rest of us easily. We heard that idiot you have for president exercising his veto power over kyoto treatment, biological arms treaty 1972 nuclear arms convention, international penal tribunal, etc, etc. All don to protect your people. We should made a convention prohibiting the use of razors, but surely your goverment would say that every american has the constitutional right of cutting his neighbourg throat… The fact is that you a cold war mentality (big ships, big guns, big everything) when you need WE NEED others things like all those stupid treaties to live in a more secure world