Military strength can be hard to quantify. Is the country that spends the most money the strongest? Is it the country with the most active military members?
By most measures The United States has the strongest military in the world. Not only do they spend the most money (nearly as much as the rest of the world combined), but they also have among the highest active military members. The only countries with more active military are China at 2.2 million, and India at 1.5 million. The United states has 1.4 million.
There are some surprising stats when you dig a bit deeper. For instance, North Korea has the 4th largest active military at 1.4 million. This is a huge percentage of their overall population. North Korea is a country of just 26 million people.
Vietnam has 5 million people in their army reserve making it the worlds largest. This is likely due to the recent conflicts there.
If you’re looking for one of the more peaceful corners of the globe, the continent of Australia is a pretty good bet. The entire region, which includes Australia, New Zealand, Fiji and Papau New Guinea barely breaks 100,000 active military personnel.
In general, world powers and regions with ongoing or recent conflicts will have the highest amount of active military, as well as the highest amounts of military spending. You’ll see this in The Middle East and Eastern Europe.
