World's nations' military info?

[Typhoon]

Does anyone know where I can get web info on every nation's military #s? I just read an MSN Slate article about how small our army is. It is also not new how unpatriotic America is and unwilling to defend this country, so it makes the perspective of the security of America very, very unsecure. Plus w/the 2 goals the Bush Admin. is after: 1) become or maintain the status as the world's policeman and liberator, 2) preventing future terrorism. And I'm just curious...what do you guys think about America's security? Are we secure? I'm not just talking about protecting the LAX or some mall from being blown up, I'm talking also about potecting our soil from an attack.

[ADBrown]

I have a sneaking suspicion that this thread is going to be deleted--the mods don't allow us to discuss anything even remotely political.

Anyway, you have to remember that size of an army doesn't equal power. When the US entered World War 2, we weren't among the top 10 military powers, but FDR declared that we were going to build 50,000 airplanes for the war. Everybody thought that he was wrong, and we couldn't do it.

It turned out that he WAS wrong. We built 100,000 airplanes.

In these modern times, we've got newer and better toys than anybody else--spy satellites that can read newspapers from orbit, flying bombs that steer themselves, airplanes that you never even know are there until something blows up... that's just the stuff they tell us about. And if all else fails, we still have about 10,000 unused nuclear warheads.

Sure, China could field a force ten times the size of the entire US military, but that doesn't do you a whole lot of good if the enemy, i.e. us, has technical superiority. Large armies are really only neccessary for low-tech wars and wars of occupation. Anything else can basically be handled by a much smaller and better equpped force. Ten million Chinese guys with automatic weapons would be dangerous, but a machine gun doesn't faze a cruise missle or a B-2 bomber. Don't get me wrong--China has some good technology. But in the end it's still a null argument, because having the military capability discourages conflict.

Anyway, GlobalSecurity.org usually has some good information.

[Typhoon]

I have a sneaking suspicion that this thread is going to be deleted--the mods don't allow us to discuss anything even remotely political.

Anyway, you have to remember that size of an army doesn't equal power. When the US entered World War 2, we weren't among the top 10 military powers, but FDR declared that we were going to build 50,000 airplanes for the war. Everybody thought that he was wrong, and we couldn't do it.

It turned out that he WAS wrong. We built 100,000 airplanes.

In these modern times, we've got newer and better toys than anybody else--spy satellites that can read newspapers from orbit, flying bombs that steer themselves, airplanes that you never even know are there until something blows up... that's just the stuff they tell us about. And if all else fails, we still have about 10,000 unused nuclear warheads.

Sure, China could field a force ten times the size of the entire US military, but that doesn't do you a whole lot of good if the enemy, i.e. us, has technical superiority. Large armies are really only neccessary for low-tech wars and wars of occupation. Anything else can basically be handled by a much smaller and better equpped force. Ten million Chinese guys with automatic weapons would be dangerous, but a machine gun doesn't faze a cruise missle or a B-2 bomber. Don't get me wrong--China has some good technology. But in the end it's still a null argument, because having the military capability discourages conflict.

Anyway, GlobalSecurity.org usually has some good information.

Thanks. Good point. Actually I didn't think this post would be a problem, because I that it would be just talk about strategy and this nation's security...but I guess since that I'm a newbie using forums on the internet, I might not know better. But I wouldn't be surprised if we brought back the draft in the near future.

[Gareth Lock]

As I am currently serving, I would have a major disagreement with your argument re: technology defeating size.

The current phrase is assymetric warfare, which can be summarised as using techniques or methods which can be effective despite the relative difference in capabilities. The USS Cole, a very advanced warship, was holed and nearly sunk by an inflatable craft filled with explosives, the numbers of insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan are so much smaller than the coalition forces but they pose a major problem.

No matter how technologically advanced one side is, if you are conducting assymetric warfare the other side has an advantage because they are not playing 'by the rules'. This is why special operations missions are normally so successful.

In an assymetric warfare situation, size only matters if you can militarily, logistically and most importantly politically, afford to lose large numbers of troops to an adversary to achieve your aim. If not, they will win despite their lack of technology and numbers.

I agree that this thread will probably be locked but the world is not a nice place, especially in the current areas of operations such as Iraq and Afghanistan.

I would recommend a very good site to visit. It primarily covers Internet security but also covers security in general including the smoke and mirrors of Homeland Defence. http://www.counterpane.com - they also have a Mobipocket weblog that is worth subscribing to.

Gareth

[Steven Cedrone]

These discussions ALWAYS wind up getting very ugly, very fast!

Thread locked!