The World's Most Powerful Militaries: Understanding the configuration of any potential war

Photo credit: The Economist

The recent military conflicts between Iran and the United States have led to the beating of war drums by some folks who are either uninformed or misinformed. "World War 3 is coming", they say. But what they do not understand is that there are 3 most powerful Militaries in the world today (in fact, a 4th nation is joining that league), and for there to be a "world war", at least 2 of the present 3 must be in the fight. The USA is just 1 out of those 3 countries, Iran is no where close to them in military might, and none of the remaining 2 nations (Russia and China) seem interested in entering into the conflict at all. Russian President, Vladimir Putin has already sent a pending invitation to President Donald Trump to come to Russia for a summit between both nations. And China is still grappling with getting their economy back on track after the US derailed it using heavy sanctions in the ongoing US-China trade war. Anything that touches Chinese economy touches the soul of China, and they have to fix that thing first before giving attention to any other thing.

Data shared by Statista as shown above lists the world's most powerful Militaries in their order. Statista is one of the best places to get statistical analysis of facts and figures as it is a continually updated, online resource for current statistical data on a broad range of topics. It cites relevant agencies and bodies from whom the data originates. In this case, the data shown above originates from Global Firepower (GFP), an organization which for the past 14 years has been ranking 137 modern military powers according to each nation's potential war-making capability across land, sea and air, fought with conventional weapons.

At the top of this list are the United States, Russia and China. India comes in a little bit behind in the 4th position, but is very powerful also. These are also major economies in the world with strategic political, economic and security partners all around the world. In the event of a military conflict, it is needless to say that there are some countries that will stand by each of these four nations. Three major similarities these four nations have is that each possesses nuclear weaponry, can fire at and reach any target anywhere in the world, and have very high defense budgets (that is, spending on development and/or purchase of military equipment). No other nation except these four share these combined similarities.

These countries in this first pack, however, seldom purchase military equipment from each other, except for India which has a strategic partnership with the US. Russia, China and US develop their own military equipment.

However, in terms of defense budget, the United States leads this pack. In 2016, the defense budget of the US ($611 billion) was bigger than those of Russia, China, India and UK combined. In the wake of the IranVsUS conflict heightened by the assassination of Iran's top military General, Qassem Soleimani early this year by a US airstrike, President Donald Trump announced that since the last 3 years alone, the US had spent $2.1 trillion on it's military, making it the most expensive and equipped in the world.

Following the 1st pack closely is the 2nd pack made up of France, Japan, South Korea, and the UK. These countries also have fat defense budgets, but not as fat as those of the first pack. While some portion of their defense budgets are spent on developing weapons, a large chunk actually goes to purchase of military equipment from their strategic partners in the 1st pack (US, China and Russia).

In 2018, South Korea had the lowest defense budget of $43.1 billion, a little bit less than Japan's $46.6 billion. France had the highest defense spending, followed by the UK. One major point to note about this 2nd pack is that all the four countries in it are traditional allies of the United States. Hence, it is imaginable that in the event of a conflict or war, they will likely be on the side of the US. In this Trump age, however, France is a bit more independent-minded under President Emmanuel Macron, but given that the US heavily funds NATO to protect Europe, France may be inclined to favor the US.

The 3rd pack follows in a distant fashion, consisting of Turkey, Germany, Italy, and Egypt. The firepower of these countries are mostly regional, with the exception of Germany. With as much as $49.5 billion in 2018, Germany leads this pack in defense spending. After years of keeping its defense budget low, the Germans finally bowed to pressure mainly from the United States to increase their defense budget.
If the conflict is in the middle east, and depending on which country is involved, Egypt may or may not be on the side of the US. The same with Turkey.

Italy is Russia's second most important commercial partner in the EU, after Germany. Both nations have continued to enjoy increasingly closer ties which dates back to many decades ago. As such, Italy is considered a strategic partner of Russia in the event of a conflict.

Even though Germany, like France, is also independent-minded in military issues, US' heavy funding of NATO continues to make them grateful to the US and inclined to partner with them to protect German interests. However, Germany also considers Russia a strategic partner in security too.

The 4th pack, Brazil, Iran and Pakistan are much weaker than the rest, but are definitely stronger than those of many other developing and underdeveloped countries. As much as Brazil and Russia are strategic partners and technological allies, the Brazil-US bilateral relationship runs very deep and has a long history. The US was the first country to recognize Brazilian independence, and Brazil was the only South American country that fought on the US side during World War 2.
Iran and Russia are strategic allies.
Russia and Pakistan have strong bilateral relations, and have been holding joint military exercises since 2016. Middle East conflicts, especially that involving the Taliban in Afghanistan whom the US accuses Pakistan of giving support to have constantly strained relations between the two nations. But, recently, the US resumed military training for Pakistan after stopping it in 2018.

In summary, it is expected that war will not breakout in the world anytime soon. But if it does, China will likely want no part in it, except to the extent which defends their territorial integrity, assets and neighboring allies. It is safe to expect that China will not want to be involved in any conflict that negatively impacts their economy.

If at all there will be a conflict, the US and Russia are very likely to be at 2 opposite ends of it. In such a case, China is very likely to give tacit support to Russia to the extent stated above. Russia and China are traditionally against the US militarily almost all the time. But, majority of the 2nd and 3rd packs will be in support of the United States. Some militarily strong nations like Saudi Arabia and Israel who aren't mentioned in the list here will also support the United States in an armed conflict. These are nations with very high military capabilities.

In all, I predict that rather than wars, the world is more likely to see only conflicts in the forseeable future. Hence, most of the military equipment of these nations will serve little use to them beyond being useful for bragging rights and intimidation.



Chukwubuikem Paul Anunaso is a civil/structural engineer, and also the editor of The Paul Anunaso Blog. He can be reached at anunaso.cp@gmail.com