"On what grounds do nuclear capabilities make good grounds for a good arm " I don't really understand if you are speaking quality or power but: With nuclear weapons, good C4ISR and intercontinental second strike capabilities, a country can not loose against a country which doen't get that! Only the five UNO powers have that with a doubt for China but they compensate by number. And France rank three for that. I fundamental interest of France is at stake no doubt we will treaten or use them if we are going to loose of conventional side.

but this is surely the top ten armies not the top ten nuclear capabilities, yes if a country has a lack of nukes then they are at a loss in many ways but if say lithunia were to get nukes and still have a crappy army this would, in your terms, make them have a better overall army. plus surely the nuclear capabilities are not governed by the armed forces but by government. the army just fire it.

While I like to be thourough in my explanations, to me there is one issue which is the most simple, and lacking of one; the rank of the United States in terms of military power. There is absoloutely no other nation in the world which can even near the USA in power. I would also like to add that I am not at all biased towards the United States; I am simply presenting fact.

US #1 correct. It is interesting don't you think, when we talk about hyper-power, etc. that 100 years ago the Brits controlled 1/4 of the world's land surface, 1/5 of the world's population and, arguably, all the oceans and made a profit doing it; we, the US control 1/25th of the world's population, we're having trouble with Iraq and it's costing us $ billions. Historically, who really is/was the ultimate power? We can destroy the entire planet, but it doesn't really seem to matter; not if the reality is a series of "colonial" limited wars.

france just playing

Well Worchester I don't know who history will pick as the ultimate power, though both the British Empire and The US pos Civil War would have to be highly considered. The Difference between the teo lay in the projection of their power. Britain was no doubt the dominant power of its time, but it always had rival(s) of nearly equal power. Its farflung Empire was controled by diplomacy, local alliances, and shrewd applications of small modern military forces. The only way that the British held India was the fact that they allied themselves with various Indian groups. The British could not have held that land without local support. The US on the other hand has no peer in its military dominance now or in its economic dominece of he past one hundred years. The difficulty that America has us that it doesn't understand how to deal with other cultures. We prefer our battles smple and stright forward with black and white issues. We have Trouble in Iraq because we choose not tojust smash our way to victory. Also war is more "Humane" now making it much harder tofight an enemy with no morals, when you must fight by the ruiles..no matter how much fire power you have.

Why is it some people have difficulty with my name? Dysleixa ruels?

Missing the point. Make it simple: 1 power controlled more of the planet than anyone else in history; another power has trouble controlling Iraq. As for the economics; the US did not become THE premier economy until 1945, so say 60 years not 100 years and that is a function of size and the ruination of every other competitor. Obviously the old "competitors" (Europe) are recovering their old economic positions - these things go in cycles - and per capita GDP in Germany, France, Uk is not dissimilar from the US. Put another way: what is the point of the US having all this power if we can't actually control anything? Is it "real" power or just "let's all blow up the world" theory? Plenty of people seem able to ignore our "leadership".

To further the point that the United States undoubtedly holds the #1 spot, think of what we could do if we were really in a tough spot. With a military that has about 2-3 million troops in it, we have easily conquered 2 nations in 2 years with only a handful of losses on our side incurred.(most of which caused by simple attrition which could be lessened if we decided to get tougher on insurgents) Then look at the budget we have on the military, and compare that to our GDP. Something in the area of 500 billion a year, at a cost of only 5% of our GDP. Then take a look back in time at WW2. Our current amount of troops comprises about 1% of our population. But, in WW2 we fielded an army of roughly 15 million, which was about 15% of the population of about 100million in the 1940's.(correct me if I am wrong) Transfer that over in todays numbers, and think of the force we could field. Going full wartime production, we could easily field a force of 50 million, including tanks, ships, and planes given not more than 5 years to prepare. Not to mention the fact that we are the only nation in the world that could simultaneously prepare a huge force at home, meanwhile shredding the industries and militaries of whatever nations decided to rise up against us. At the moment, there isn't a navy in the world that would last more than a year against ours. And once all opposing navies are taken out, there wouldn't be a shipyard left standing that could put out more than a fishing boat in defense. We have a carrier battle group in every sea, that each in their own right, could take out entire navies that might sail in to challenge them. Given 2-3 years, our navy could triple in size, and there wouldn't be a thing that any opposing force could do about it. Defense projects that are at the moment struggling such as the F-22, would go into production without ceasing. 400 at the moment sounds like an awful lot in terms of dollars, but we would build thousands if we felt the need. Projects such as the anti-missile laser systems would be completed and put in to mass production in far shorter time than could ever be hoped of in peace-time production. The largest economy in the world goes full wartime mobilization, and does so knowing full well that it won't really see the profit until after the war is over. The other top 9 nations in the world couldn't gang up on the US and hope to win in less than 10 years without using nuclear weapons. The advent of precision munitions and satelite monitoring has put the US in such a position of power, it is almost sick. The location of every factory, shipyard, staging area, and even individual warship no longer relies on a flyby from some spyplane, but can be found out, targeted, and assinged a bomb with just the readjustment of a satelite or 2. Unlike in WW2, if you spot a shipyard, industrial complex, or other high priority target, you don't need 100 bombers to take it out. You only need one, or a mere handfull. Well, one bomber, or a few fighters. Think of a B-52 with hundreds of smart bombs flying over modern europe, after all the air defenses have been supressed. No longer hoping to hit that factory, but leveling dozens of factories in every sortie. Meanwhile an ocean away, the United States war machine is producing without contest,protected from every enemy ship or plane that even comes close. Any that do get in and get a shot off are taken out shortly after, and don't cause much damage anyway. We don't even have to land any troops, other than to take key resource locations and objectives. Just reduce the opposing nations to third world countries until they either surrender, or have no industry left to produce so much as a wrench, let alone a tank/ship/plane for which to use a wrench on. Of course, it isn't very likely to happen that we would have to fight the top 9, but if we had to, there wouldn't be much that could stop us other than all out nuclear war. More likely it would happen that Great Britain, Israel, Canada and at least a handful of countries such as Australia, Japan, and S. Korea would be on our side.(depending on what started the war, china attacking taiwan, the EU getting organized and feisty, whatever) Add Great Britain to the US side in the world vs US scenario, and you pretty much put a total lockdown on the worlds oceans. Sorry, for the extrapolation,(and a large amount of what might seem like plain american arrogance) but someone asked why the US is automatically thrown on top, and I just had to reply with something. :)

Well that is only true because of the characteristics of the Empire, it was a purely economical, money making system. The main goal wasn’t to indoctrinate every inch of the globe into thinking the British way. Therefore was there any need to keep several hundred thousand British troops in India? After all, Britain was making money, the local Rajahs were making money and if there troops could join a Sepoy Battalion and be paid more as a Red Coated infantryman, than he could as a Mahratta, then why not? Why pay over the odds? Just shrewd British business as you point out. As for rivalry. Well maybe on land there were other forces which outnumbered the British, but then again that boils down to the old chestnut of “Its not the size but what you do with it that counts”, and this features more so on land than anywhere else. No other nation could rival the technology, the discipline and the experience of a British infantryman. Not to mention that no other nation had anywhere near the same amount of financial clout to back it up with. And of course somewhere down the line Sand Hurst produces a genius like old Arthur, which, helps. As for the Royal Navy, then I’m afraid that there simply was no other close rival; in both numbers or experience. The two power standard, which ironically enough was in effect, but not as Royal Navy doctrine until an American Admiral pointed it out, made the Royal Navy twice the size of both the French and at various points German, US etc navies, combined. And in the pre SSN/CBG/TLAM/AEGIS days, an extremely powerful force indeed. As for America, I am baffled that the worlds most culturally diverse nation, struggles to relate to a culture which is already present in the US. I’m aware that the WASP’s (with the exception of JFK of course) have pretty much all ways run the show however, which may be the sticking point. As old European values die hard, even after several hundred years. The need to adapt to a situation is a paramount, things change and you have to change with them, to do so is to be successful. To not, is to go the way of the Viceroy.