Strength Ranking

This section of the website is dedicated to creating a politically unbiased list of military strength that is meant to take in several factors typically not used by other military strength ranking websites or lists, and is meant to measure the military strength ranking of a nation’s capability to wage a prolonged total war instead of the current active strength ranking which is what most lists tend to rank. We take in factors that illustrate why Vietnam despite being much weaker by the standard and factors typically used in most strength ranking methods was able to defeat the French, Americans and Chinese in 3 major wars with no time to recuperate in between. What made them so effective against much wealthier nations, with larger populations and more industrial capacity? This is the reason why we felt a ranking like this need to be made, once and for all, not as a way to discredit the professional or expert opinion provided by other strength ranking methods and lists, but to take in multiple factors that are usually hard to quantify or predict or are controversial to talk about due to obsessions and abuse of political correctness in public discourse and the legal system and are therefore censored or suppressed in being used or are mistaken for being psuedoscientific, the more human side of war, things such as morale or the physical characters of various racial and ethnic groups and how mentality and social culture can shape ferociousness in battle that makes one an effective warrior.

RANKING FACTORS:

1. Population
2. Land Area
3. Number of Factories
4. Number of Cities with a Population of at Least 100,000
5. GDP Nominal
6. Technological Doctrine
7. Natural Resource Wealth
8. Arable Land
9. Space Program Progress and Number of Satellites in Orbit

• Population – The amount of total population goes a long way in determining the ability of a nation to pick itself up before succumbing from total defeat by the active military invasion forces of an invader. In some instances, it’s an exception. Historically, technology and training have always mattered, as we could see when the Ancient Macedonians managed to defeat the numerically superior Ancient Persians, but with enough manpower the Ancient Persians would have won instead, they just fell short of it. Similarly, this was the case in what led to the defeat of Nazi Germany by the Soviet Union. The Red Army amassed a total of 34 million troops during World War 2. The German Wehrmacht, in comparison, was only 18 million. While the Germans were initially more technologically superior, and maintained some level of technological superiority over the Soviets, this difference was not vast, as was between the British and the Zulus, for example. When it comes to war, this ultimately matters. People are limited by their five senses, and their arms and legs. They can run around, hide behind cover, and shoot their weapons. The firearms of the time carried by most troops all shot the same thing – bullets. Most infantry did not wear bulletproof vests. A gun is a gun. An STG44 is a huge improvement over a bolt action rifle, but it not a significant improvement over a PPsch-41. This is also the reason why a country like Serbia would not militarily be able to defeat the United States. Aside from fighting forces, a good portion of the population that is not out fighting the war will become mobilized to produce in factories, both civilian and military goods. They will work in mines, in construction, they will build tools of war and they will research new weapons and technology. More people means more hands to work, and more minds to think. This is a good reason why China is about to surpass the US economically, where it was only a fraction of it’s GDP 20 years ago.
• Land Area – Land area does not matter much in modern warfare, as modern forces can traverse great distances very quickly. If a World War 3 breaks out, rest assured they will be able to travel thousands of kilometers within a few hours, as opposed to days. No longer are foot marches of millions of soldiers across thousands of kilometers necessary. All terrain vehicles can get people quickly, everywhere, and they can be mass produced. They are also much faster than they were before. Horses are no longer a common form of cavalry. Despite that, more land area means potentially more natural resources, and more area that one will need to take, but also more area to defend. Even though not all land area is useful or hospitable, such as in desert countries or extremely frigid climates, what lies there can be useful and can be used as a last bastion of defense.
• Number of Factories – The number of factories in a country goes towards being ready made buildings with machine and staff that can quickly be converted and trained to produce military goods and services. This is one of the reasons why modern militaries tend to go after factories first, in order to destroy the ability of a country to wage long term war. A country with 10,000 factories and people to work them will do much better in a war facing off with a country with only 100 factories, and just as much population. In terms of industrial capacity and fueling the war effort, not having enough factories is like the population not having enough guns lying around during a zombie apocalypse.
• Number of Cities with a Population of At Least 100,000 – As strange as it may seem that this goes into the military strength ranking equation, and as the existence of nuclear weapons and bunker buster weapons are able to destroy entire cities and skyscrapers with ease, the fact that nuclear weapons are a last resort, missile defense systems can invalidate nuclear power, and there is a limit to the amount of bunker busters you can deploy, or the amount of bunker busters you would need to destroy every single building in a city like Tokyo or New York, it is unrealistic to think that cities in themselves can not be used as an enormous fortification by both military and civilian defense forces. Having cities is also an indication of modernization in the 21st century, the more and larger cities you have, the more populated, the better constructed and connected, is a sign of high civilization in our century. It is a good indicator of future economic performance, and of the sophisticated nature of it’s citizens, although no guarantee by all means. Take a look at many developed and developing countries, you will notice that the militarily, economically and politically weaker countries tend to have less urban areas overall, less well designed and maintained urban areas, or not as many high rises.
• GDP Nominal – Even though GDP PPP is a better indicator of economic performance as it is adjusted for local prices, we will use GDP Nominal for this metric because it is the base ranking for economic performance. Money means nothing when the whole world is falling apart. A person that is dying of hunger will care more about a can of food than an entire stack of $100 bills. But despite this, having a strong economy at the point of outbreak of war is detrimental to how the morale of the country will unravel. Sometimes it is a weakness, as good times make soft people, but it also means that before everything falls apart, they will be able tp use this money to buy food, pay workers, produce goods, trade with non-hostile countries and so forth. It also means that as long as a world economy exists, a country can throw money at insurgent groups who can fight on it’s behalf, in their enemy’s homeland, at a fraction of the cost of sending their own military there, like the US has recently begun doing.
• Technological Doctrine – Many military strength ranking systems put air power above all else as infantry and tanks alike are virtually useless against helicopters and airplanes. Modern airplanes in particular can travel so high and so fast that even with upgraded MANPADS it is difficult to down them, yet they can hit their targets efficiently and constantly harass ground power and sea power. The problem with his logic is that air defense systems can easily invalidate air power, as they are made to target aircraft from a distance far enough that the aircraft cannot come close enough to cause any damage. Similarly, having aircraft carriers to project power becomes invalidated by supersonic torpedoes. Having strong navy battle groups is invalided by submarines, and using the Arctic’s ice as a shield to shift sea and air battles to either the Atlantic or Pacific oceans can be invalidated by having a fleet of icebreakers who can clear the way for other ships following behind. Relying on slow navies can be invalidated by hypersonic aircraft, which has existed since the 1970’s and before. Hypersonic cargo aircraft can bring troops, vehicles and supplies from a distance like Tokyo to New York in 2 hours. Also, having a vehicle that can be a combination of anti ground, anti air and anti sea also whilst having artillery capabilities can replace an entire mechanized and motorized platoon. Drones and robots can replace soldiers, and can be put back together once destroyed, unlike soldiers, which die permanently. They can also function in many adverse environments, and are not effected by biological, chemical or radiological warfare as much as human beings. So we tend to think of it as a sort of “rock paper scissors” when it comes to invalidation of one technology by another. Simply counting on the sheer number of vehicles and equipment won’t cut it. Rather, how good is the equipment? Does it have enough trained operators ready to use it? You could show 13,000 helicopters but only use a few hundred of them regularly because the rest are parked, the same with tanks. How long can it run for without supplies? How expensive is it? Expensive doesn’t necessarily mean good. Look at all the 747 Max airplanes that have fallen out of the sky due to erroneous code. Sometimes price is a disadvantage, even if it’s a state of the art technology, like Dora the railway gun was for it’s time. If one side has one of a certain technology, how many does the other side have to invalidate their technology?
• Natural Resource Wealth – The dollar amount of natural resources means that you have so much of something valuable that it will surely be useful in war if it is useful in peace. But this is not everything, we have to take into account other things. You cannot eat oil reserves, so having arable land is ultimately more important than oil reserves.
• Arable Land – The amount of arable land means that unless the enemy comes in to pollute it, you will be able to produce food for your population and armies, old fashioned style. Ultimately arable land becomes invalidated by hydroponics and aeroponics techniques, together with modular vertical farms, but having it is better than not having it at all, and some countries cannot afford nor assemble modular vertical farms but have tons of arable land and a good natural climate for growing all seasons.
• Space Program Progress and Number of Satellites in Orbit – The reason this is important in the 21st century is that aside from asteroid mining, having satellites grants a country with the ability to collect geospatial intelligence, and not every country has the capability to shoot down their opponent’s satellite. Being the one who controls GPS information can also be detrimental, especially in conjunction with augmented reality glasses where troops can receive and give information to each other in real time. As a matter of fact, the CIA has heavily invested in big data intelligence and analytics software that together with artificial intelligence can organize and collect information on many, many events, sifting through information, and can potentially give recommendations automatically. How great would it be to automate the task of a soldier?

THE LIST:

1. China
2. India
3. United States
4. Russia
5. Brazil
6. Pakistan
7. Indonesia
8. Germany
9. Japan
10. Philippines
11. Mexico

Stay tuned… More coming soon…