Who is now where was Iraq in top?

What country is now where Iraq was in 1990 in power's top? If i remember right, Iraq was on 6 th place in some aspects.

So? Who is?

Iama

If I remember right, it was journalistically dubbed the 4th largest army in the world, or something like that.
But national power is not judged on that basis alone. I would really be surprised if Irak was the 6th in the world as far as national power was concerned.

take care

It might seem that the answer would depend how you define power. Certainly military strength is one way to rank power, but economic activity , it could be argued, is the most important. It's pretty difficult for an economically weak country to sustain a powerful military; witness the former Soviet Union.

Interestingly, some very economically powerful countries have miniscule militaries; witness Japan.

Annual growth in GDP (Gross Domestic Product) seems to be the most often used benchmark of the strength of a given country's economy.

For 2005. The Economist magazine's intelligence unit forecast the Iraq economy's GDP growth rate to be 10.3%

If that forecast holds true, Iraq will come in as the #6 fastest growing economy in the world for this year.

Perhaps that was the 6th place you were thinking of.

(for the record, Romania's GDP is forecast at 5.2%, well ahead of some of her major
trading partners: Italy (1.8%), Germany (1.9%) and France (2.4%), and slightly behind Russia (5.8%)
(source: The Economist; The World in 2005.)

I understand you right? You say Japan have minuscule military power? Maybe is my english... But if you say that, please check some sources about Japan navy, for example. If i understand you in a bad way... sorry!

Iama

Strength is not power.

Hi Iama,

Japan was constitutionally restricted to spending no more than 1% of its GDP on its defence forces. This is an extremely low level.

However, Japan has a very big economy (second largest after the USA), so 1% is a considerable amount by international comparison.

As a result Japan has been able to build up a large fleet, in particular, by international standards.

Cheers,

Sid.

Plan for amending the constitution:
http://www.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/getart...n20050708a2.htm

This post has been edited by Dani on November 24, 2005 03:32 pm

Well, let me rephrase Imanadi's question: which are the top ten (top five) nations in terms of military power? Also note that Imperialist is right, largest army does not necessarily mean biggest military power, so what about a top ten/top five for the largest armies.

We can make a simple guess for the first three, USA, Russia and China which would probably fit both criteria (in this order?), but what about the rest?

A top for military spendings: http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/spending.htm

Also a top for size of the armies: http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/wor...ctive-force.htm

Thank you, Dani. But I wonder if we can equal the amount of military expenditures from a certain period with the military power in a certain moment... My opinion is that we can't. So, the question about the military potency top ten still stands unanswered.

Hi Dani,

At least as far as the UK is concerned, both links are badly wrong. Defence expenditure is nearly twice as high at about $65 billion dollars, while the number of servicemen is only half as many at 112,700 soldiers, 40,900 sailors and 53,400 airmen.

Cheers,

Sid.

Hi Sid,
I found http://www.nato.int/docu/pr/2005/p050609.pdf also.

edited: Page 5 and page 10

This post has been edited by Dani on November 25, 2005 11:12 am

Hi Dani,

Your latest link looks most convincing yet. Traditionally British defence expenditure has been similar in scale to French defence expenditure. Thus $49 Billion looks most accrate. Perhaps the $65 Billion was calculated when Sterling was stronger against the US Dollar.

Cheers,

Sid.

Strength is not power.

Yes, but the point is military power is only created and sustained by wealth.....by economic strength. It's been that way through history; I challenge you to find a countervailing example; a country/empire able to sustain military power in the face of economic decline...the FSU is only the latest spectacular example of an empire sucked dry by its military.

Some of this discussion is sounding like something out of the 19th century. In the nuclear, and now, post nuc "Star Wars", era the SIZE of the armed services is nearly irrelevant, as a gauge of ultimate military power. "Size doesn't matter"

And even who has the largest number of nukes, soon loses meaning. With the doctrine of MAD (mutually assured destruction) entry into the game requires a fairly small ante. Thus the concern over small countries, with nuclear capacity.

Paradoxically, if we want to talk aboiut the less than ultimate, small scale wars. counter insurgency action, brushfire wars, and guerrlilla action...in short the "real" wars of our time....size is only one factor. These may be the only kinds of wars winnable or even fightable in our time.

But they cost money. Lots of money.

Hi Iamandi; I should have looked at the Navy figures. I meant to draw attention to the realtive size of armed services and economy....Japan is still an economic juggernaut (3x the size of Chinese economy, e.g.) I think, but has relatively small military, overall. cheers.