"Italy surpassed Britain in GDP in 1987"

When you define military rank of a world power, you have to rank it against its ability to counter a potential threat worldwide, if war has to start in the coming weeks.

Of course such a power is ranked with its ability to act independantly, to support blackmail of a third party and to protect its territory agaisnt an existing threat, and to get a military victory at the end.

Ability to get a victory depends on existing assets and ability to extend this assets during a war to achieve victory even if it takes 2 or 3 years.

Falkland experience and other like Suez, show you can not count everytime on your traditional allies to support you, so you have to go alone.

Meaning no dependance on weapon use.so to have its own weapons or being able to substitute them by its own in a short time (likely within months or in a year): Rank is USA then Russian and France (all 3 fully independant) then UK and China (limited dependancy on some systems)

Rank is USA, Russia, France, are in the first group then UK (US partly dependant) and China (very few warheads able to be send at the opposite of the earth).

In the first group, USA, and France are safe (no continental threat for France ) as UK in the second so they do need strong ground forces in metropolitan area.

In the first group, USA, and France are able to project worlwide as UK in the second group but only US and France have full means of assessing situation (satellites, worldwide ELINT station, space surveillance etc..) , real carrier, and overseas base worldwide with depot and standing troops.Only US , France and UK have quality force which can handle a much bigger third world army while deploying a well inferior army in number.

Only USA, France, and Russia produce alone all necessary state of the art weapons, have weapons production line open for all kind of system (or under cocoon) and fully technologically independant while UK is close.Only USA , France and UK have easy access to war loans.All the five powers , have sufficient manpower (officers and NCO to extend by several time)

 

So the rank is obvious:

Then Japan, Germany, India, Italy (more potential power than real one but it give them a real weight)

 

Your list is a complete joke.lol china india above russia? and this includes nuclear potential? i dont know why alot of you guys rate china as a military superpower most of their weapons are still old and they depend on the russians for oil and weapons. The only thing going for china is a booming economy and manpower!!! how do u fight a war without oil? or quality equipment ? Sure they have the manpower!  manpower is useless without the right equipment!!  i think the chinese will even need permission from the russia's even to take back taiwan back because they will need the oil flowing. India? simply broke.  My list will be  1.USA 2.UNITED KINGDOM  3.FRANCE 4. RUSSIA 5. CHINA 6. INDIA 7.GERMANY 8.ISRAEL 9. JAPAN 10. ITALY 

 

Reason for placing russia above India and China is they posses russian made exquipment which am sure the russians will know how to counter them. russia has a larger oil reserve than both, more nuclear weapons and a more technological superior equipment.

I can't believe that this thread is still going..... Since it started, I've lived and travelled in Asia, finished University and other things... Unfortuantely the 3 years have not yielded any intelligent analysis or anyone who actually realises that this is a pointless, boring thread. Do yourself a favour and ignore it.

This list is not definitive. I'm not entirely happy with it myself.

1 USA
2 Russia
3 China (Dubious)
4 Republic of Korea
5 India
6 Germany
7 UK
8 France
9 Israel
10 Sweden

Special mention goes to vietnam who've beaten France, USA and China in the past 50 years.

This list is not definitive. I'm not entirely happy with it myself.

1 USA
2 Russia
3 China (Dubious)
4 Republic of Korea
5 India
6 Germany
7 UK
8 France
9 Israel
10 Sweden

Special mention goes to vietnam who've beaten France, USA and China in the past 50 years.

try this:  USA

            RUSSIA

            UK

            FRANCE

            CHINA

these countries are the top 5, and tied for 6 is everyone with limited nuclear capability and tied for dead last is everyone else.  only the US and Russia have the power (nuke wise) to blanket the world with nuclear explosions, britain and france field ssbns that can wipe out entire continents, and china has lots of nukes too.  all of the other nuclear powers ( been a long time since i looked at any numbers so correct me if i am wrong) can cause regional destruction with limited number of limited range nuclear strikes, and all the non-nuke countries are SOL cause they cant shoot down ICBMs and they cant launch their own weapons in retaliation.  anyone disagree?

         

Why everybody thinks the Italian Army is that bad, and its soldiers the worst?