Military Questions

Factual Questions
1

I am designing a board game similar to the game World in Flames that will be based in current times, using the current geo-political status for a starting point. The biggest thing I am having probl;ems with is accurate information regarding military sizes of various armed forces from around the world, as well as some of those factions which you can’t find the information readily on Jane’s.

Some of the questions I have:

  1. Where could I find the the current size of the armed forces (army, navy, air force, marines) of the following countries and alliances:
    a) the United States
    b) the United Kingdom
    c) NATO minus US and UK
    d) China
    e) North Korea
    f) South Korea
    g) Japan
    h) Israel
    i) Pakistan
    j) India
    k) Russia

  2. I know it may not be 100% politically correct, but what would be the approximate number of people who would consider themselves belonging to organizations such as Al-Qaeda, Hamas, and Hezbollah?

  3. Where could one find information such as GDP by regional breakdown for each of the countries mentioned, major resources for each country, debtload, and current treaties, alliance, and pacts currently in place?

  4. Where could one find a generic breakdown of military command structure, including number of troops that would operate under the command of a one star general, or equivalent?

That’s about all I can think about for now. I have tried searching via google and such, but I’m such a klutz with search engines, that I can’t find anything.

2

The CIA World Factbook will probably get you off to a good start on most of your questions.

3

I checked out the CIA World Factbook, and while it does include information such as GDP, it doesn’t include the current size of standing armies.

4

The Federation of American Scientists website has a great links page, that can point you around a bit.

Globalsecurity.org has a bunch of information about various nations standing armies, and a breakdown of global defense spending. (Which I linked to.)

Standing army info for the countries you listed should be at one of the above sites, since they are considered ‘hotspots’.

If paper-media is acceptable, all the info you are looking for is in James Dunnigans How to Make War.

5

Thanks for the help. It will make things a whole lot easier from here on out. Now I just need to get a map, figure which scale to run it on, and presto. Not as easy as I thought it would be…lol

As an aside, boy, is it ever expensive to get Jane’s book “The World’s Armies” ($1300 US).