Military Power

Questions
I want to know who everyone thinks
1) influence the global strategic balance the most.
2) are the world's military powers most able to deploy the most firepower, troops, aircraft, ships


Please I would love to know everyone's answers to both parts of my questions and what they think.

Maximus the Destroyer wrote:Questions
I want to know who everyone thinks
1) influence the global strategic balance the most.
2) are the world's military powers most able to deploy the most firepower, troops, aircraft, ships


Please I would love to know everyone's answers to both parts of my questions and what they think.

1) The countries which influence the global strategic balance the most are: United States, Great Britain, Russia and China.
2) The world's military powers most able to deploy the most firepower, troops, aircraft, ships are: United States (aircraft, ships & firepower), Great Britain (aircraft, ships & firepower), Russia (troops, aircraft and firepower), and China (firepower, troops & aircraft).

My opinion applies to CAPABILITIES, not that they don't know how to use them.

1) I am not sure whether I would describe the USA as an "influential" nation or an "influenced" nation because they tend to react to circumstances as opposed to creating them.
In terms of influencing the strategic balance I think you have to look at the second tier nations on the world stage, places like Pakistan, India, North Korea, Israel etc. who's actions drive the responses of Russia, USA and China.

2) Clearly USA, Russia and China have the greatest capacity to deploy the most firepower after that I am not sure the numbers or nations really matter because nations such as France, Germany or Britain do not have capacity to carry out or support long term military operation as their infrastructure is not designed for it.

Well, I think that the USA and Russia caused a lot of things that smaller countries did. The knowing that a super power will support or oppose a move you make influences countries like Israel and others.

As far as what countries can put the most fire power and largest numbers, those are kind of separate issues. The North Korean army is huge, but it dose not have the firepower of smaller armies, like the UK or Israel. Firepower, as i see it is the ability to hit and destroy a lot of targets at a short time, Countries that have high precision weapons like MLRS and PGMs can create much more firepower.
As to numbers I believe those can easily be found online, but are very misleading. The UK army is smaller than the German army, but the German army dose not enjoy the support of a navy with aircraft carriers, and cannot operate on its own away from its physical borders. Israel has a very well equipped and fairly large military force, but it cannot field a a ground force anywhere that is too far.