With “effectiveness” defined to include training, maintenance, and logistical capacity as well as number and quality of ships. (It doesn’t do a darned bit of good to have fancy weapons platforms if you don’t know how to use them, don’t fix them when they break, and can’t keep them fueled and the crews fed.)
I’m excluding the US from consideration because, well - we’re so far ahead of the rest of the pack it isn’t even funny. A single Carrier Battle Group would be, all by itself, one of the most formidable navies on Earth. As for the Europeans, well - I know less about Asian, African, and South American navies, so they’re more interesting to me.
Another word on effectiveness - much of it includes the ability of a navy to meet the nation’s own military needs. (It’d be silly to ding the Israeli navy because it can’t project power into the Pacific, for instance). But on the other hand, the idea of this thread is to describe interesting navies - countries with nothing but a half-dozen aging patrol boats need not apply, even if they’ve no need for anything more impressive.
Probably India and China have the next best ‘effective’ navies. Both were able to deploy warships relatively far from home and presumably support them. Japan has a fine navy as well, though it’s composed of smaller ships and is mainly a local defense force, not really intended to long overseas deployments.
Both India and China have been able to deploy and logistically support warships in Africa which isn’t exactly on their coast. As for Russia, afaik the current Russian Navy is incapable of long deployments as they don’t have the logistics (or, hell, the money) to support them. Are they even still building ships these days? The last I looked at Russia’s navy (granted, it’s been a while) they weren’t even paying the sailors regularly.
Well, the Red Fleet isn’t quite what it used to be, but they still have at least one carrier group out there, plus 30 or so submarines and about as many surface platforms. ETA : and considering how many incidents they’ve been having with their subs lately, I’d say those ships aren’t in top shape either.
Of course, barely 20 years ago, they had 6 carriers, 210 subs and a whole truckload of surface boats… Sic transit gloria mundi.
A destroyer or two is not projecting power. And look at a map, the African Coast is right next to the Indian Navy area of operations. All the countrys in the area, India, Pakistan as well as Iran have a lot of interest in the area next to the Horn of Africa, most of their trade comes from there.
Agreed that Africa’s east coast isn’t that far from India - but I’d point out that a destroyer certainly can be a genuine power-projection platform, so long as you’ve limited goals. A single destroyer is going to ruin a Somali pirate’s whole day, for example. And I’d not care to be on the angry end of a guided missile destroyer’s ordnance. The question with regard to power projection IMHO, isn’t, “how much bang can you put in location X?” but “can you reliably put sufficient bang in location X to achieve you military goals?”
If you’ve got something you want to do through military force, you can send a destroyer there without stretching your supply chain to breaking, and the destroyer can do the job - I’d say you’ve successfully projected military power. On the other hand, I wouldn’t call a “show the flag” mission a real projection of military power.
India has an aircraft carrier, with 2 more under construction and has an explicit goal of creating a blue water navy. Might be a few years off, but it seems to be well on the way going by its construction list.
Indonesia is a strong regional naval power. 74000 people serving in it with 136 ships. They have naval aviation, a submarine force, amphibious capability, and good logistics.
Brazil isn’t at the same level as those mentioned upthread, but they’re the regional naval powerhouse for South America. I think they’re actually number 2 in the Americas, although obviously nowhere close to the US. They’ve got 98 ships, including an aircraft carrier and 5 subs. They’ve been working hard to modernize and are currently developing their own nuclear sub.
A single Carrier Battle Group would be, all by itself, one of the most formidable navies on Earth. As for the Europeans, well - I know less about Asian, African, and South American navies, so they’re more interesting to me.