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Subject: Most Powerful Military of All Time in Terms of Global Percentage
Aeb4ever    1/13/2006 1:20:45 AM
What was the most powerful military of all time in terms of global share of military power? For example, the USA is currently ranked at having about 53% of total naval power. I am referring in terms of all branches vs the world. My votes would be either the Mongols at height, Romans at height, English at height, USA after WWII, or USA after Cold War. Can’t make a guess at each countries percentage though. Fell free to add your own list or make a guess at the percentages of mine.
 
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kane       2/8/2007 10:21:03 AM
French Stretege
You're saying Ottomans were not a global power and claiming that the French were??
WOW just WOW


 
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kane       2/8/2007 10:28:51 AM



+Ottomans at height
. . .

Their armies were not just crowded but the most discplined and well equipped



Here I was thinking Ottomans = Bashi-Bazouks >> West Asia's answer for the Berserker

Just kidding. Ottomans were the first people to really invest in developing artillery as a weapon of war. Western Turks were used as mercenary gunners as far away as Malaysia and Indonesia - definitely well equipped.

Bashi-Bozouks were berserkes.They were in front of whole army during battles and they were given drugs
They were generally made up of problem people
 
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kane       2/8/2007 10:40:34 AM
btw Ottomans weren't colonising(thhey should have) they were conquering
I don't remember French moving all the way to Istanbul beating everyone on the way and trying to hold on 2 more continents for more than 600 years

 
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Vritra       2/8/2007 11:04:43 AM

I can find more stuff to prove Ottomans were a global power(actually the most powerfull) in 15th-17th century and very strong world power in 1300s.

In 1300s Ottomans and Timurid were the greatest power in the world(well Europe wasn't a union back then)
Timur and Beyazdil thought they were the mightiest. . .


Did the Ottomans even know that the earth was indeed globular to be a global power? All pun aside, Ottoman Empire was interesting in its dichotomy - in the Western end it was relatively unified under Islamic and Turkic banner, in the Eastern end it was much more flexible in its loyalties and boundaries. Its tribal components in 1300s would no doubt have heard about the Mongol and later Ming rulers of China lording it over a population and land-area larger than Ottoman Empire and all of Europe combined? At that point of time China was definitely richer and far more advanced than Europe or West Asia, logically its rulers would be far more powerful.

Timur definitely was stronger than the Ottomans - he did capture Beyazdil... but even he was quite wary of the Ming - sending them tributes (which is funny because when he attacked the Delhi Sultanate it was in a "jihad", but didn't dare declare one against decidedly kafir China). By the way most of the Timurid clan was exterminated by the Uzbegs within years of his death with only a small branch of surviving in Afghanistan as Mughals. This would have been inconceivable to Western Ottomans, but the Eastern Ottomans would probably take it as a fact of life.

Ottomans survived for the very long period of time that they did (a) because they had adopted many Greek/Byzantine ideas on leadership and administration which was completely different from the Central Asian/Turkic concept of leadership, and (b) because between 1800-1900 Ottomans were seen as useful anti-Russian/anti-Slavic counterforce in that area.
 
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french stratege       2/8/2007 11:58:23 AM
TitleI don't remember French moving all the way to Istanbul beating everyone on the way and trying to hold on 2 more continents for more than 600 years
French sacked Bysance on the way of crusades.
And we have ended Ottoman empire with the British.Ever heard of Sykes Picot agrement?
 
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Ehran       2/8/2007 12:15:00 PM
If you look upon human migration patterns as I do, which is functionally equivalent to encroachment by one baboon troop upon another baboon troop's range, then it is indeed an invasion by a foreign troop on the native troop's range.

Apples is apples, Ehran. You just have to take the cultural blinders off to see it. 

Herald

invasion carries a rather strong military connotation while encroachment doesn't.  i have no problems considering the pilgrims an encroaching group but i would have a real problem considering a bunch of farmers and their families as an invasion force.
 
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Ehran       2/8/2007 12:35:49 PM

+Ottomans at height
The army they fielded beat crusader armies many times(sometimes beaten though)
They were politically controlling everything.Their armies were not just crowded but the most discplined and well equipped
Their navy was controllin whole medittreanean,black sea and aegean sea before Lepanto
And well the most important thing
they were the richest


there really weren't any world powers until the europeans got into the empire building business.  up till that time all there were was regional powers simply because they could not reach out of their home regions enough to matter.  the ottomans for instance were simply not something that peoples who didn't more or less border on their territories had to worry much about.
 
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Ehran       2/8/2007 12:40:44 PM


TitleI don't remember French moving all the way to Istanbul beating everyone on the way and trying to hold on 2 more continents for more than 600 years

French sacked Bysance on the way of crusades.

And we have ended Ottoman empire with the British.Ever heard of Sykes Picot agrement?

think that was before the ottomans took over the city though.

 
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AdamB       2/8/2007 1:01:21 PM
The most powerful country ever, in terms of overall military power, is the United States BUT that's only because it has weapons - such as nuclear bombs etc - that weren't invented when the British Empire was at its greatest in 1921.
 
But the most powerful and dominant country in history, in terms of how much powerful and dominant it was compared to all the other countries in the world at the time, was Britain during its empire. 
 
At the height of its powers Britain was much more dominant in the world than the US is now.  Britain was the world's first industrialised country, the first country in history in which the majority of its inhabitants lived in towns and cities and invented globalisation.  Britain produced over half of the world's coal, half the world's steel and the majority of its textiles, such as spun cotton.  In the 1890s, a massive 40% of all the world's exports were Britain's exports, meaning Britain exported almost as much as the rest of the world put together.   Britain became known as "The Workshop of the World." 
 
In the 1890s, Britain owned three-quarters of the world's ships and had a merchant navy that had more tonnage than the rest of the world combined.  In the early 1900s, Britain built 90% of the world's ships.
 
The United States today cannot beat any of those records.
 
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AdamB       2/8/2007 1:05:00 PM
[quote]France Napoleonic Era [/quote]
 
Rubbish.  During the French Napoleonic Era, in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, Britain was the world's dominant power.  Naploleonic France ruled much of Europe but Britain, and its navy, ruled the world.
 
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