rickusn

Found this on another discussion board:

"How do you rank the powers? It occured to me that you could do so by their military expenditure in US dollars, as per the CIA world factbook. It ranks them according to spending, but fails to categorise them. I thought about this, and came up with these categories:


SUPERPOWERS - Spend at least $100 billion to assert themselves globally.
$370 billion - United States

MAJOR POWERS - Spend at least $10 billion to assert themselves regionally.
$67 billion - China
$50 billion - Russia*
$45 billion - Japan, France
$42 billion - United Kingdom
$35 billion - Germany
$28 billion - Italy
$18 billion - Saudi Arabia
$16 billion - India, S Korea, Australia**
$12 billion - Turkey
$11 billion - Brazil
* Russia estimate from globalsecurity.org.
** a misplaced decimal point in the CIA Fact Book under-represents Australia's defense budget by a factor of 10.

MIDDLE POWERS - Spend at least $1 billion to assert themselves locally.
$9 billion - Spain, Canada, Netherlands, Isreal
$7 billion - Taiwan
$6 billion - Mexico
$5 billion - Greece, Sweden, N Korea
$4 billion - Singapore, Argentina, Iran, Norway
$3 billion - Belgium, Pakistan, Poland, Portugal, Chile, Colombia, Denmark, S Africa
$2 billion - Kuwait, Switzerland, Algeria, Egypt, Morocco, Czech Republic
$1 billion - Finland, Thailand, Malaysia, Venezuela, UAE, Austria, Jordan, Indonesia, Libya, New Zealand, Hungary

MINOR POWERS - Spend at least $100 million on their own security.
$900 million - Bangladesh, Romania
$800 million - Yemen, Syria, Peru, Philippines
$700 million - Qatar, Iceland
$600 million - Ecuador, Serbia, Vietnam, Bahrain, Croatia, Ukraine
$500 million - Sudan, Cuba, Nigeria, Lebanon, Sri Lanka
$400 million - Slovakia
$300 million - Cyprus, Slovenia, Bulgaria, Tunisia, Botswana, Ethiopia
$200 million - (12 countries)
$100 million - (24 countries)

MINNOWS - Spend less than $100 million on their own security.
(rest of the world)"

FlyingCaddy

Consider that S Korea spend triple what N Korea spends, do you think the US should still maintain bases in Korea, or are our posts in Japan sufficent?

-{SpoonmaN}-

No way Australia spends as much as India. We don't even have enough ammo to provide full fire arms training to our reservists.

Jay

Malaysia just spends a $1 Bill. Thats not right.

FYI...In 2003 Malaysia purchased 18 Su-30's from Russia costing around $900 Mill.

You definetely need more than a $1 Bill to maintain this list...

Armed forces
104,000 active forces;
51,600 reserves (Army 50,000; Navy 1,000; Air Force 600

Army
80,000 forces (to be 60-70,000) with 26 light tanks
Paramilitary: 20,100 (estimated)

Navy
14,000 forces with 41 patrol and costal combatants and four principal surface combatants

Air force
10,000 forces with 95 combat aircraft and no armed helicopters

Defence budget
$2.0 billion (2002)

Defence expenditure
$3.4 billion (2002)

http://www.alertnet.org/thefacts/cou....htm?v=details

__________________
A grain of wheat eclipsed the sun of Adam !!

dave angel

the spending rankings don't tell the whole story, its what your money buys that determine your global reach/influence.

britain and japan spend similar sums, but japan doesn't have three aircraft carriers that can sail round the world and park on someones doorstep for an almost indefinate period.

britain and france spend far less than the US but they are still global powers because a) they have conventional expeditionary navies and b) their nuclear powered and armed sumbarines can hit any target anywhere on the earths surface as and when they see fit.

britain and frances reach extends as far as the US's, granted the US has a greater reach and weight of punch in conventional terms, but the nuclear reach is the same none the less.

the only area of global reach that the US exceeds the two european powers is in conventional strike capability. the UK can attack any target with a conventional cruise missile that is less than approx 950 nm from the sea.

that is some areas of northern and eastern china, much of central asia, eastern russia near the mongolian border, a relatively small area of brazil and a relatively small area of the united states.

the US does not have this restriction with its B2 bomber.

if the UK can develop a SLCM with an additional 300 or so nautical miles range then that restriction will be removed. weight of fire is still carried by the united states by some margin, but the UK does have eleven nuclear submarines cabable of firing SLCM'S.

nuclear weapons and SLCM's are not a panacea by anymeans, they are not suitable to use in close air support or COIN and they don't put boots on the ground but they are big, sharp and painful sticks to be waved when vital national interests are threatened.

Blademaster

How does the hell Singapore fear a takeover by the Malaysian forces with these kind of numbers!? The malaysian forces don't even have any sufficient force for urban operations!

Blademaster

I can't believe how much money Bangladesh spend on their security. And it's all a waste because no matter how much Bangladesh spends, India will crush her like an egg. Bangladesh should reduce the spending by 400 million dollars and use that for infrastructire.

Jay

But Singapore really lacks the depth. And not to metion that they are adjacent to Malaysia and are dependant on Malaysia for a lot of essential things.

rickusn

"Malaysia just spends a $1 Bill. Thats not right."

Could be another typo and is actually $10B? Like Austrailia. Which apparently does spend $16B a year.

Selective

Stating the obvious..The living stardards with wages etc push up the costs.
e.g aust.

ArjunMK1

Bangladesh Army , with its present strength , can withstand a full fledged Indian attack atmost for eight hours ( according to popular Bangladeshi lore ) , enough time for its rulers , generals and elites to fly to west .

Bangladesh need to maintain this time gap , so it conducts major purchases while India is mordenizing its forces .

BenRoethig

The military goods coming out of Russia and China cost less.

__________________
F/A-18E/F Super Hornet: The Honda Accord of fighters.