Interesting Military statistics

[USMCmech]

I read this on a another website.

http://www.straightdope.com/columns/040611.html

Here is the major points.

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Top ten military budgets. The U.S. spends the most by far, but matters aren't as lopsided as your letter suggests. The WMEAT list (in billions): (1) U.S., $281.0; (2) mainland China, $88.9; (3) Japan, $43.2; (4) France, $38.9; (5) UK, $36.5; (6) Russia, $35.0; (7) Germany, $32.6; (8) Italy, $23.7; (9) Saudi Arabia, $21.2; (10) Taiwan, $15.2. The U.S. military, therefore, spends as much as the next six countries (not 16) combined, with just about enough change to cover Greece ($6 billion). To put it another way, the U.S. accounted for 33 percent of world military expenditures in 1999, a modest increase since Cold War days (28 percent in 1986). Sorry, no breakdown on percentage of the military budget used to suppress dissidents or otherwise deal with internal security.

Five largest armed services. Soldiers (in millions): (1) mainland China, 2.4; (2) U.S., 1.5; (3) India, 1.3; (4) North Korea, 1.0; (5) Russia, 0.9.

Arms exports. Here's where it starts to get interesting. According to WMEAT, the U.S. exports far more arms than the rest of the world combined--$33 billion versus $18.6 billion. The biggest arms importer? Saudi Arabia, $7.7 billion.

Top three in gross national product. Think you know this one, eh? We'll see. The first two are easy: (1) U.S., $9.3 trillion; (2) Japan, $4.4 trillion. Now guess the third. Time's up: it's mainland China, at $3.9 trillion. According to the CIA World Factbook, China's economy grew 8 percent in 2002, whereas Japan's grew 0.2 percent, so it's fair to say China will soon have the second largest economy in the world. In fact, on a "purchasing power parity" basis (don't ask), it already does.

Military expenditures as a percentage of gross national product. The U.S. spends a lot on its military but has a lot to spend. Some other countries don't have much but spend it on the military anyway. World leader: Eritrea, which spends 27.4 percent of its $757 million GNP (world rank: 155) on the armed services, most of it presumably to fight its archenemy, Ethiopia. The balance of the top ten, with percentages ranging between 21.2 and 8.8: Angola, North Korea, Oman, Saudi Arabia, Congo, Qatar, Jordan, Ethiopia, and Israel. U.S. rank: 52nd, at 3 percent.

Military expenditures per soldier. The U.S., one notes with patriotic pride, ranks first, spending $189,000 per soldier--Lord knows crack prison guards don't come cheap. Japan (number two) and the UK (number three) aren't far behind, spending $180,000 and $167,000, respectively. Who's at the bottom of the list? Why, Iceland, where annual military expenditure per soldier is $0, owing to the fact that the country has no regular military and thus no military budget. How can that be in our wicked world? Easy. The country is protected by the Icelandic Defense Force, maintained by--you guessed it--the United States.

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Kinda makes you think.