1Most armed places
Top 10 Most Powerful Countries In The World 2016 -2017:strongest countries in the world. There’s only one true way to compare military strength, and thankfully we haven’t had the opportunity to compare powerful countries in recent decades – though with a powder keg in the South China Sea, standoffs in Ukraine, and proxy wars throughout the Middle East, we are alarmingly close.For a simpler evaluation of military power, we turn to the Global Firepower Index, a ranking of 106 nations based on more than 50 factors including overall military budget, available manpower, and the amount of equipment each country has in their respective arsenals, as well as access to resources.
The index focuses on quantity, ignoring significant quantitative differences (North Korea’s 78 submarines, for instance, aren’t exactly state of the art). It also does not factor in nuclear stockpiles – still the ultimate trump card in geopolitics. It also does not penalize land-locked nations for lack of a standing navy.
We’ve created a chart to compare the top 35 militaries according to the Global Firepower Index. The ranking, released in April 2014, involves a complex set of data that is subject to ongoing adjustments and corrections. The United States clearly leads the world in military spending at more than $6 billion. China is the closest nation to follow the US at nearly $130 billion – which is still less than a third of America’s overall spending.
According to a report from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), the US has reduced its defense budget by 7.8% chiefly due to America’s gradual withdrawal in overseas military operations, like Afghanistan and Iraq.
Meanwhile, Russia has increased its arms spending by $88 billion and plans to ‘modernize’ its current weapons arsenal.Aircraft carriers contribute greatly to a country’s overall military strength.The U.S.’s absolute monopoly on these vessels significantly boosts the country’s forward operating power.
