Largest Armies in the World — Ranked by Active Military Personnel 2026 | BusinessTats
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Largest Armies in the World — Ranked by Active Military Personnel 2026
With global military expenditure reaching a record $2.718 trillion in 2024, the world's armies are larger and better-funded than at any point since the Cold War. This report ranks every major nation by active military personnel as of early 2026, covering China's 2.03 million-strong People's Liberation Army through to South Korea, Vietnam, and Egypt — with defense budgets, geopolitical drivers, reserve forces, and the structural trends reshaping military power worldwide.
18 min readUpdated March 2026Defense Industry Report
2.03MChina — #1 Army
$2.72TGlobal Defense Spend
145Nations Tracked (GFP)
8Nations 500K+ Troops
$997BUS Defense Budget
+9.4%Spending Growth 2024
Sources:SIPRI 2025Global Firepower 2026IISS Military Balance 2025WorldAtlasWikipedia IISSVisual CapitalistStatista
Executive Summary
The World's Armed Forces in 2026 — Rearmament, Regional Tensions, and a New Era of Military Scale
The geopolitical landscape of 2026 is defined by the most sustained global rearmament cycle since the Cold War's end. Russia's ongoing war in Ukraine, persistent tensions across the Taiwan Strait, an expanding nuclear standoff on the Korean Peninsula, and intensifying competition in the Indo-Pacific have collectively pushed governments across every world region to increase their military headcounts and budgets at a pace not seen in decades. According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), global military expenditure reached a record $2.718 trillion in 2024 — a 9.4% real-terms increase from 2023 and the steepest year-on-year rise since at least the end of the Cold War. All world regions increased spending simultaneously for the first time in the modern era.
In this environment, active military personnel — soldiers serving full-time, immediately deployable — remain the most direct measure of a nation's conventional warfighting capacity. Global Firepower's 2026 manpower data, cross-referenced with the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) Military Balance 2025, shows a world in which eight nations sustain active forces exceeding 500,000 troops — and three nations (China, India, and the United States) collectively maintain over 4.8 million personnel between them, representing the single largest concentration of ready military power in human history. Understanding which countries maintain the largest standing armies — and why — is essential context for interpreting every major geopolitical development of our era.
World's Largest Armies — Ranked by Active Military Personnel 2025/2026
Top 10 Armies — Detailed Country-by-Country Analysis
Active troop counts alone do not capture the full picture of military power — doctrine, technology, training, logistics, and nuclear capability all shape real-world deterrence. But manpower scale determines which nations can sustain prolonged conventional conflicts, deter adversaries through sheer presence, and project force simultaneously across multiple theatres. The following profiles examine the world's ten largest standing armies through the lens of size, structure, and strategic context as of early 2026.
1
🇨🇳 China — People's Liberation Army (PLA): 2,035,000 Active Personnel
The People's Liberation Army is the world's largest standing military by active personnel — a force of over 2 million troops organised across Ground Force, Navy, Air Force, Rocket Force, and four specialised arms covering space, cyber, information support, and joint logistics. Commanded by the Central Military Commission chaired by President Xi Jinping, the PLA operates under an "active defence" doctrine with five theatre commands integrating joint operations. China's 2024 defence budget reached $314 billion (1.7% of GDP), funding an intensive modernisation drive encompassing hypersonic missiles, blue-water carrier groups, fifth-generation fighter jets, and advanced AI-enabled surveillance systems. The PLA's strategic focus has shifted decisively from internal security toward power projection, with particular emphasis on Taiwan contingency planning and South China Sea dominance. Despite its numerical lead, China's force has not fought a major conflict since 1979 — a combat experience gap that analysts view as a structural vulnerability against the battle-hardened forces of the United States and Russia.
2
🇮🇳 India — Indian Armed Forces: 1,475,750 Active Personnel
India's armed forces — comprising the Army, Navy, and Air Force — are the world's second-largest by active headcount, reflecting the country's vast population, complex security environment, and decades-long border disputes with both China and Pakistan. According to the IISS Military Balance 2025, India maintains 1,475,750 active personnel supported by 1.155 million reservists. India's 2024 defence budget reached approximately $86 billion (2.4% of GDP) — with major procurement priorities including the Rafale fighter fleet expansion, domestically developed LCA Tejas aircraft, INS Vikrant aircraft carrier operations, and the Agni-V intercontinental ballistic missile programme. India's military doctrine balances deterrence against a potential two-front war (China and Pakistan simultaneously) with active insurgency management in Jammu & Kashmir. The Agnipath military recruitment scheme, introduced in 2022, remains controversial — a structural reform that reduced the size of enlistment cohorts while increasing technical specialisation.
3
🇺🇸 United States — US Armed Forces: 1,315,600 Active Personnel
The United States Armed Forces — comprising the Army, Navy, Marine Corps, Air Force, Space Force, and Coast Guard — field approximately 1.32 million active-duty personnel across a globally distributed posture spanning over 750 military installations in more than 80 countries. The US ranks third in raw manpower but first in every qualitative dimension: the 2024 defence budget reached $997 billion, accounting for 37% of all global military spending. President Trump's proposed 2027 defence budget of $1.5 trillion — if enacted — would represent the largest military appropriation in human history. US modernisation priorities centre on long-range precision fires, uncrewed systems, nuclear triad recapitalisation, and hypersonic missile defence. The expiration of the US–Russia New START nuclear treaty in February 2026 has removed quantitative limits on both nations' nuclear arsenals for the first time in over 50 years — a development with major implications for strategic stability globally.
4
🇰🇵 North Korea — Korean People's Army (KPA): 1,280,000 Active Personnel
North Korea's Korean People's Army is the world's fourth-largest standing force, sustained through universal conscription that drafts men for up to 10 years and women to age 23 — the longest mandatory service periods of any nation on earth. The KPA comprises five branches: Ground Force, Navy, Air and Anti-Air Force, Strategic Missile Force, and Special Operations Forces. Despite an estimated annual GDP of only $28 billion, North Korea allocates an extraordinary ~26% of GDP to defence — approximately $4 billion per year. The KPA offsets its qualitative disadvantages versus the US and South Korea through the world's largest special-forces corps (estimated 180,000–200,000 operatives), an extensive artillery arsenal capable of reaching Seoul, ballistic and hypersonic missile programmes, confirmed nuclear warhead capability, and alleged chemical weapons stockpiles. North Korea also dominated global headlines in 2024–2025 by reportedly deploying upward of 10,000–12,000 soldiers to support Russian operations in Ukraine — the first confirmed deployment of DPRK forces to a foreign conflict.
5
🇷🇺 Russia — Russian Armed Forces: 1,134,000 Active Personnel
Russia's armed forces, numbering approximately 1.134 million active personnel by IISS estimates, have undergone dramatic structural stress since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Combat losses — estimated by Western intelligence services at over 400,000 killed and wounded through 2025 — have required aggressive recruitment, including prisoner recruitment programmes, elevated signing bonuses, and emergency conscription extensions. Russia's 2024 defence budget reached $149 billion (7.1% of GDP) — double the 2015 level and a 38% increase from 2023 alone, according to SIPRI. Despite operational setbacks in Ukraine, Russia retains formidable strategic capabilities: the world's largest nuclear arsenal (approximately 5,580 warheads), an extensive hypersonic missile inventory, and one of the world's largest armoured vehicle and artillery parks. Reserve mobilisation pools give Russia a theoretical wartime manpower base of 2+ million additional personnel — though training quality and equipment availability for reserves remain significant constraints.
6
🇺🇦 Ukraine — Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU): ~730,000 Active Personnel
Ukraine's military represents the most dramatic wartime mobilisation in Europe since World War II. From a pre-invasion force of approximately 196,000, Ukraine's Armed Forces have expanded to an estimated 730,000 active personnel — making it Europe's largest military by headcount in 2026. Ukraine allocates an extraordinary 37% of GDP to defence — the highest military burden of any nation not engaged in total war. Western military aid from NATO allies has proven decisive: over $100 billion in security assistance since 2022 has transformed the AFU from a Soviet-legacy force into a modern combined-arms military with experience in drone warfare, electronic warfare, counter-battery operations, and urban combat that few other forces in the world can match. Ukraine's military trajectory in 2026 remains entirely dependent on continued Western support and domestic industrial base development.
7
🇵🇰 Pakistan — Pakistan Armed Forces: 660,000 Active Personnel
Pakistan's military — the seventh-largest by active headcount at 660,000 — is shaped primarily by its decades-long strategic rivalry with India and an ongoing internal security campaign against militant groups. The Pakistan Army, Air Force, and Navy maintain a posture anchored in nuclear deterrence: Pakistan is estimated to possess 170 nuclear warheads, with continued expansion of its tactical nuclear arsenal via the Nasr short-range ballistic missile programme. Pakistan's 2024 defence budget of approximately $10.4 billion (2.7% of GDP) is supplemented by significant US, Chinese, and Gulf security assistance. The Pakistan Army also plays an unusually prominent role in domestic politics — a civil-military dynamic that shapes defence procurement, foreign policy, and internal governance in ways that have no parallel among other major military powers.
8
🇮🇷 Iran — Islamic Republic of Iran's Armed Forces: 610,000 Active Personnel
Iran's armed forces — comprising the conventional Islamic Republic of Iran Army (Artesh) and the ideologically separate Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) — total approximately 610,000 active personnel. The IRGC, with its own ground, naval, aerospace, and Quds Force (external operations) branches, functions as a state-within-a-state — maintaining independent command structures, budgets, and foreign policy instruments. Iran's proxy network — Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Houthis in Yemen, Shia militias in Iraq and Syria — represents a force-multiplier that makes Iran's effective regional footprint substantially larger than its official headcount suggests. Iran's ballistic missile programme — the largest in the Middle East, with ranges covering Israel and US bases throughout the region — is the centrepiece of its deterrence strategy in the absence of a conventional air force capable of contesting regional air superiority.
9
🇰🇷 South Korea — Republic of Korea Armed Forces: 555,000 Active Personnel
South Korea's military is among the world's most operationally ready, sustained by universal male conscription (18–21 months), a $47 billion annual defence budget (2.8% of GDP), and the most combat-relevant threat environment on earth — a shared border with North Korea's million-plus-strong KPA. South Korea's 3.1 million-strong reserve force is one of the world's largest in proportional terms. South Korea is also a significant and growing defence exporter: K2 Black Panther main battle tanks, K9 Thunder self-propelled howitzers, and FA-50 light combat aircraft are now operated by NATO members including Poland — a remarkable transformation from a nation that was an aid recipient just decades ago. South Korea's military-industrial capability increasingly allows it to modernise its own forces and export at scale simultaneously.
10
🇻🇳 Vietnam — Vietnam People's Army: 482,000 Active Personnel
Vietnam's People's Army, at approximately 482,000 active troops, operates a "four no's" defence policy — no military alliances, no siding with one country against another, no foreign bases on Vietnamese soil, and no use of force in international relations — that nevertheless sustains one of Southeast Asia's most capable armed forces. Vietnam's 5 million-strong reserve force — the world's largest in proportion to population outside the Korean Peninsula — reflects Vietnam's historical experience of sustained guerrilla and popular warfare. The primary drivers of Vietnam's military investment are maritime territorial disputes with China in the South China Sea, where Vietnam maintains island and reef positions contested by Beijing. Vietnam has significantly modernised its submarine fleet (six Kilo-class SSKs from Russia) and coastal defence systems in recent years.
Global military headcounts in 2026 reflect the most sustained rearmament cycle since the Cold War. Eight nations now maintain active forces exceeding 500,000 troops — a concentration of standing military power unprecedented in the post-Soviet era.
North Korea fields the world's fourth-largest active military despite having the world's 49th-largest economy. Russia ranks fifth in manpower but maintains the world's largest nuclear arsenal (~5,580 warheads). The United States fields "only" the third-largest active force yet spends more on defence than the next 10 nations combined and maintains the most globally capable power-projection military in history. Raw troop counts provide essential context for conventional warfighting capacity — but nuclear deterrence, logistics, technology, and alliance structures ultimately determine which nations can shape global security outcomes.
Defense Spending
$2.718 Trillion — Global Military Expenditure Hits a Record High in 2024
SIPRI's 2025 Military Expenditure Report documents the most significant single-year increase in global defence spending since the Cold War ended. World military expenditure reached $2.718 trillion in 2024 — the 10th consecutive year of increases — with the top five spenders (United States, China, Russia, Germany, and India) accounting for 60% of the global total, combining for $1.635 trillion. The United States alone spent $997 billion, representing 37% of all global military expenditure and approximately 66% of total NATO spending. Military spending increased in every world region simultaneously — a first in the modern statistical record. European NATO members collectively spent $454 billion — 30% of total alliance spending — as the threat from Russia drove the fastest European rearmament since World War II.
Top 10 Military Spenders — 2024 Defense Budgets
Rank
Country
Defense Budget 2024
YoY Change
% of GDP
1
🇺🇸 United States
$997 Billion
+5.7%
3.4%
2
🇨🇳 China
$314 Billion
+7.4%
1.7%
3
🇷🇺 Russia
$149 Billion
+38%
7.1%
4
🇩🇪 Germany
$97.6 Billion
+28%
2.1%
5
🇮🇳 India
$86 Billion
+4.2%
2.4%
6
🇸🇦 Saudi Arabia
$80.3 Billion
+6.5%
6.0%
7
🇬🇧 United Kingdom
$74.9 Billion
+6.2%
2.3%
8
🇺🇦 Ukraine
$64.7 Billion
+67%
37%
9
🇫🇷 France
$61.3 Billion
+6.0%
2.1%
10
🇯🇵 Japan
$59 Billion
+21%
1.6%
Source: SIPRI Military Expenditure Report, April 2025. Russia figure is SIPRI estimate; China figure based on official announcement. Ukraine figure includes Western military aid equivalents in some estimates — domestic budget figure was approximately $35 billion.
Over 100 countries around the world raised their military spending in 2024. As governments increasingly prioritize military security, often at the expense of other budget areas, the economic and social trade-offs could have significant effects on societies for years to come.
— SIPRI Trends in World Military Expenditure, 2024 (Published April 2025)
Reserve & Total Forces
Beyond Active Duty — Reserve Forces, Paramilitary, and Total Military Capability
Active-duty headcounts capture only one dimension of military capacity. When reserve and paramilitary forces are included, the ranking changes dramatically — Vietnam and South Korea, in particular, emerge as nations with extraordinary total mobilisable capacity relative to their active-duty figures. Vietnam's 5 million-strong reserve force makes it the largest total-force military in Southeast Asia. South Korea's 3.1 million reservists, combined with 555,000 active troops, give it one of the highest military participation rates of any democracy on earth. North Korea, by contrast, achieves its extraordinary total military footprint — estimated at over 7 million including paramilitary forces — through an entire society organised around military readiness.
Vietnam
5,000,000 Reservists — World's Largest Reserve
Vietnam's reserve force of approximately 5 million is the world's largest outside the Korean Peninsula in proportional terms. Universal service traditions from its wars with France, the US, and China create a deeply militarised society with extraordinary mobilisable depth.
South Korea
3,100,000 Reservists — 130.5 per 1,000 capita
South Korea's universal male conscription and structured reserve system produce the world's highest total-force military density among democracies. ROK reservists undergo annual training cycles and are organised for immediate integration with active units in the event of conflict.
Russia
2,000,000+ Mobilisable Reserves
Russia's reserve system — tested, strained, and partially reformed by the Ukraine conflict — represents a theoretical pool of millions of ex-conscripts with recent training. However, equipment shortfalls, training gaps, and combat losses have substantially degraded the effective quality of this reserve base relative to Soviet-era assessments.
North Korea
5,889,000+ Paramilitary Forces
North Korea's paramilitary — the world's largest — vastly exceeds its 1.28 million active force in total numbers. Including Worker-Peasant Red Guards and other formations, the DPRK's total armed mobilisation capacity approaches 7–8 million, though equipment and logistical constraints dramatically limit effective combat power at scale.
India
1,155,000 Reservists
India's reserve system — the Territorial Army, Ex-Servicemen Corps, and National Cadet Corps — provides meaningful depth for a nation confronting potential two-front conventional threats from China and Pakistan. The contested Agnipath scheme aims to expand technical specialisation but has drawn criticism for reducing career-length service experience.
Brazil
1,340,000 Reservists
Brazil's 335,000 active troops and 1.34 million reservists make it by far South America's largest military. Despite its size, Brazil's military has been focused primarily on internal security and disaster relief operations — with limited power-projection capability and a relatively modest $20 billion annual defence budget despite its G20 economic standing.
Key Trends
Six Forces Reshaping Military Manpower and Global Defense in 2026
🤖
AI, Drones, and the Changing Value of Manpower
Autonomous systems — loitering munitions, surveillance drones, AI-enabled target identification, and electronic warfare platforms — are reshaping the calculus of manpower-intensive armies. The Ukraine conflict has demonstrated that a smaller, better-equipped force with drone superiority can inflict catastrophic losses on a numerically superior opponent. The major powers are investing heavily in uncrewed systems precisely because they reduce casualty exposure — but headcount remains decisive for territorial control, logistics, and sustained operations.
🇪🇺
European Rearmament — Fastest Build-Up Since 1945
European NATO members increased collective spending by 17% in 2024 alone — pushing total European military expenditure beyond Cold War peak levels. Germany activated a €100 billion special defence fund and committed to 2%+ of GDP. Poland — now spending 4% of GDP on defence — is building what it calls "the strongest army in Europe." Sweden and Finland joined NATO, adding substantial Baltic Sea military capacity. European active headcounts are growing for the first time since the post-Cold War drawdown of the 1990s.
⚛️
Nuclear Proliferation Pressure Intensifies
The expiration of the US–Russia New START treaty in February 2026 has removed limits on nuclear arsenals for the first time in over 50 years. China's nuclear stockpile has grown from 350 to 600 warheads since 2020 and is projected to reach 1,000 by 2030. North Korea continues testing longer-range delivery systems. This multipolar nuclear environment — with three major nuclear powers no longer bound by bilateral arms control — fundamentally complicates conventional military deterrence calculations for all mid-tier armies.
🚀
Indo-Pacific Military Surge
Japan's defence budget has doubled in real terms under its 2022–2027 military build-up plan, with a target of 2% of GDP. South Korea continues expanding its defence-industrial base and active capacity. Australia is investing $368 billion in its AUKUS nuclear-powered submarine programme. Taiwan has extended conscription service. The Indo-Pacific is experiencing the most significant simultaneous military build-up of the 21st century, driven by Chinese assertiveness across the Taiwan Strait, South China Sea, and in the broader region.
🛰️
Space and Cyber as Military Domains
All major military powers now formally designate space and cyberspace as operational domains requiring dedicated military forces. The United States Space Force, China's Strategic Support Force (reorganised 2024), Russia's Aerospace Forces, and emerging space commands in France, India, and Japan all represent the institutionalisation of non-kinetic military competition. Cyber attacks on critical infrastructure, GPS-denial operations, and anti-satellite missile tests by China and Russia have demonstrated that military confrontation is no longer confined to physical battlefields.
📉
Recruitment Crises in Volunteer Armies
The United States Army and UK Armed Forces both failed to meet recruiting targets in 2023 and 2024 — a structural challenge affecting all-volunteer military models in ageing, employment-rich democracies. The US Army missed its FY2023 recruiting goal by approximately 15,000 soldiers. The UK Regular Army now stands at its smallest headcount since the Napoleonic Wars. These recruitment shortfalls are driving accelerated investment in automation, longer service contracts, and — in some European nations — debates about reinstating conscription for the first time in decades.
Notable Militaries
Armies Worth Watching — Notable Forces Outside the Top 10
Several militaries not ranked in the top 10 by active headcount warrant close attention in 2026 due to their disproportionate regional influence, technological sophistication, or rapid expansion trajectories.
Israel's military is among the world's most operationally experienced, having conducted sustained multi-front combat operations in Gaza and against Hezbollah through 2024–2025. Israel's defence spending reached $45.6 billion in 2024 (8.8% of GDP) — the second-highest military burden globally behind Ukraine. The IDF's reserve mobilisation system — able to field nearly half a million combat-ready reservists within 72 hours — gives Israel a total wartime capacity disproportionate to its 9 million population.
🇵🇱 Poland — Polish Armed Forces: ~197,000 Active
Poland is the most significant European military expansion story of the decade. Now spending 4% of GDP on defence — the highest share in NATO — Poland is purchasing K2 tanks from South Korea, F-35 fighters from the US, and activating new territorial defence formations. Poland's stated ambition to field the "strongest army in Central Europe" has moved from political rhetoric to procurement reality.
🇹🇷 Türkiye — Turkish Armed Forces: ~355,000 Active
Türkiye fields NATO's second-largest military by active headcount — with a distinctive strategic posture that simultaneously maintains membership in the Western alliance while deepening military ties with Russia and pursuing independent foreign policy objectives from Libya to Azerbaijan to Syria. Türkiye's Bayraktar TB2 drone has become one of the most battle-proven unmanned systems in the world, used effectively by Ukraine, Azerbaijan, and others.
🇯🇵 Japan — Japan Self-Defense Forces: ~247,000 Active
Japan's pacifist constitution historically limited its military spending to 1% of GDP, but a 2022 National Security Strategy explicitly committed Japan to doubling defence spending to 2% of GDP by 2027. Japan is now acquiring Tomahawk land-attack cruise missiles, developing a domestically built successor fighter, and operationalising its two Izumo-class "quasi-carriers" for F-35B operations — a quiet but dramatic transformation of one of the world's most advanced but historically constrained militaries.
🇪🇹 Ethiopia — Ethiopian National Defense Force: ~350,000 Active
Ethiopia's armed forces have undergone brutal expansion through the Tigray War (2020–2022) and subsequent conflicts, reaching an estimated 350,000 active personnel — making it the largest military in Sub-Saharan Africa by active headcount. Ethiopia's military capacity, however, is heavily constrained by equipment shortfalls, supply chain fragility, and the enormous human and economic costs of recent internal conflict.
FAQ
Frequently Asked Questions
China has the world's largest army by active military personnel, with approximately 2,035,000 active-duty troops in its People's Liberation Army (PLA). India is second with 1,475,750 active personnel, and the United States is third with 1,315,600. This ranking applies to active-duty headcount only — when total forces including reserves are considered, Vietnam and South Korea's enormous reserve bases change the picture significantly. Data is sourced from the IISS Military Balance 2025 and Global Firepower 2026.
According to SIPRI's April 2025 Military Expenditure Report, global military spending reached a record $2.718 trillion in 2024 — a 9.4% real-terms increase from 2023 and the steepest year-on-year rise since at least the end of the Cold War. The United States alone accounted for $997 billion (37% of the global total), followed by China ($314 billion) and Russia ($149 billion). All world regions increased military spending in 2024 simultaneously for the first time in the modern record.
Ukraine has the world's highest military burden as a share of GDP at approximately 37% — reflecting the existential nature of its war with Russia. Israel's military spending reached 8.8% of GDP in 2024 — the second-highest globally — following the escalation of conflicts in Gaza and against Hezbollah. Russia spent 7.1% of GDP. North Korea's estimated military burden of ~26% of GDP is exceptional for a nation not engaged in active foreign conflict, reflecting the KPA's total centrality to the DPRK's political system.
North Korea dominates active military per capita, with approximately 50.4 active soldiers per 1,000 population — the highest of any nation on earth. Eritrea has the second-highest density of active troops relative to population at 33.8 per 1,000. South Korea leads among democracies, with 130.5 total military members (active + reserve) per 1,000 capita. The United States, China, and India — despite their enormous absolute headcounts — rank relatively low on a per-capita basis due to their vast populations.
The Russia-Ukraine war has fundamentally reshaped military rankings and spending patterns globally. Ukraine itself has surged from approximately 196,000 active troops pre-invasion to an estimated 730,000 — entering the top 6 largest forces globally. Russia has dramatically increased defence spending (+38% in 2024 alone) while absorbing massive personnel losses. European NATO members have collectively accelerated rearmament to the fastest pace since 1945. Poland, Finland, Sweden, Germany, and the Baltic states have all significantly increased both headcounts and budgets. North Korea has deepened military cooperation with Russia, reportedly deploying troops to the conflict — the first foreign deployment of KPA forces.
Yes — personnel headcount is one of many factors. The United States ranks first on virtually every qualitative military metric: it operates 11 nuclear-powered aircraft carrier groups (more than the rest of the world combined), the world's most advanced air force (F-22, F-35, B-21), the largest global basing network (750+ installations in 80+ countries), the most capable special operations forces, and a $997 billion annual budget — more than the next 10 nations combined. The 2026 Global Firepower overall ranking places the United States first, Russia second, and China third — reflecting these qualitative factors beyond raw manpower. Raw active personnel counts are an important but incomplete metric for assessing true military power.
