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Best Military In The World

Country with the most fearsome war chest

AMERICAN warships are heading to North Korea in a blunt display of power. How do the other world powers' military forces stack up? Ref. Source 2s.

World The Military Best

Good question and the answer is it depends.

If talking about nuclear forces, then the US and Russia are equal with the other nuclear powers far behind. And as far as equal goes, one has to ask if Russia has actually kept up the maintenance of its nuclear forces. There was a time when their spending was so low that most of their military fell into disrepair. If the same thing happened to their nuclear weapons they might not operat correctly if called upon. That said, this isn't anything we'd want to bet on, they have deployed some new and more capable weapons since those times, and even 50% of their arsenal would have devastating consequences.

On the conventional side it's the US hands down. Our military has the 'luxury' of having a lot of recent experience. We have the most capable Navy in the world. One carrier task group carries devastating firepower and we have many. Our Air Force has the most planes in the world. Our Special Forces are among the best elite forces in the world. But what really sets us apart is our ability to project and maintain power abroad. No country comes close to our ability to project power.

Now, other countries are closing the gaps in areas. China is developing missiles that can kill our carriers and building a much smaller but regionally capable navy. Russia has developed cruise missiles nearly as accurate as ours. Russia and China have planes nearly the equal of ours, although thanks to being so rich our pilots have a lot more training the average Russian or Chinese pilot. And they are both working on force projection. But as of today, when it comes to conventional forces, the US is on top.

Best Military In The World History & Civil Business Politics

What about China? I have wondered about this before. Their army dwarfs our army. They have so many more people available to fight than we do.

World The Military Best

With the military might of many countries it is really hard to say who the best military in the world is. While Abnninja and myself are very pro American military it is hard to say if we are at the top. Yes we have one on the best air force and navies but as far as total power I doubt we are the top. I think China has the largest military and Russia has a larger military than us but I am not sure on their training of late. I would like to think that we are best but I would say we are top three.

World The Military Best

Size of the military alone is much less important than other factors. The Spartans proved that 2400 years ago and it's still true today. If one doesn't have the ability to get that military to where it needs to be it's worthless. There is no country on the planet that has the ability to project military power like the US. Our Navy is peerless at this. One carrier task group can literally project more firepower than was used in all of WW II combined.

Yes, I'm prejudiced towards the US military, but I've also been taught through my military training to NEVER underestimate your opponent. Looking at the militaries of other countries I'm quite sure the US is very much the top dog. One of our planes is worth three to five of our near peers' planes and many more than that against other countries. This is due to our pilots better training and our technological advantage. This is also due to our ability to control using things like AWACS, which allows us to position our aircraft in exactly the right place. None of our near peers has the same level of capability in this. This is like the advantage England had in the Battle of Britain thanks to their radar… which allowed their much smaller air force to defeat the German air force. Although the gaps are closing, they are still there.

As far as ground forces are concerned, ours are state of the art, highly trained, division for division, many times more capable. Again, this gap is closing as China and Russia modernize their forces and make them more mobile and streamlined like ours are. Ground forces also include special forces units, and ours are among the best in the world. There are other countries that have very good SF troops, Russia, England, and Australia are three. But part of the thing is being able to deploy (Project) these forces.

I've said this before but this is truly where the difference lies, we can project power better than any country. No two countries combined have the ability to project forces that we have. Our Navy and Air Force have capabilities here that dwarf that of our near peers. We can put more forces where they need to go quicker than any other country in the world. So, if you are talking about us invading China or Russia they could bring their full military to bear and it would require allies and nukes for us to win. By the same token, they are even less capable of invading the US. But in the real world where us invading them or them invading us really doesn't play into things, rather we fight in other areas, our military is far and away still the best.

Best Military In The World

What's sad is that we have by far the best military in the world but we can't root out terrorism. Our enemies are fighting with very limited technology and yet continue to strike us. It seems like we never lose a battle but never win a war. Our military seems better suited to fighting a regular war than wiping out ISIS etc.

Edited: Kyrroeth on 11th Apr, 2017 - 2:55pm

Best Military The World

Kyrroeth,

Yes, there are multiple reasons for this. First, terrorism is a tactic not a country, organization, or force to attack and beat. So, if we kill every terrorist alive today tomorrow someone who wasn't a terrorist today could decide the only way to advance his or her cause is to use terrorism… and the war continues. Next, the forces that we call terrorists are very diverse and they are integrated within the general populace. This makes it very difficult to attack them without causing collateral damage.

Which leads to the last reason, we are fighting with our hands partially tied. This one requires an explanation. War is ugly and should always be a last resort, but when we decide to fight we need to fight with all our power. In WW II there was a lot of collateral damage, it's how we broke Germany's and Japan's will to resist. Yes, that is a horrible thing, it truly is. That said, that is why there was no guerilla operations in either countries after we occupied them, they were done. We can't do that any more because of the news and our aversion to collateral damage. I'll tell you what, let an enemy sneak a nuke into this country or Europe and kill a million people and I bet you no one would care about collateral damage any more. The press would scream how could you let that happen. And our military would take out everyone and anyone who had the capacity to do this, collateral damage notwithstanding.