Watch Out, These Emerging Naval Powers Might Overtake the U.S. Navy One Day

By Jessica Lynn Mar 29, 2025 8:10 am

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Watch Out, These Emerging Naval Powers Might Overtake the U.S. Navy One Day — © <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/marcelocampi/48334023137/" target="_blank" style="font-size: 100%">ROU 26 Vanguardia</a> (<a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/" target="_blank" style="100%">CC BY-SA 2.0</a>) by <a href="https://www.flickr.com/people/marcelocampi/" target="_blank" style="100%">Marcelo Campi</a>

Naval dominance has long been a determining factor in trade, power projection, and geopolitical relationships. While America’s military ship and submarine fleet, and the fleets of other world powers, once ruled the seas unchallenged, the balance of power is shifting. New contenders are spending millions — even billions — to catch up, and these countries are hitting their milestones in military development. In March 2025, Exail, an industrial company which specializes in advanced technologies, announced that it had “delivered critical navigation equipment to the Finnish Navy, marking a major step forward in the Squadron 2020 program.” In the delivery were shockmount protection systems and Marins M3 inertial navigation systems for the Finnish Navy’s Pohjanmaa-class corvettes. Such advanced acquisitions give Finland capabilities previously reserved for top-tier navies, which will allow their vessels to operate more effectively in the highly contested Baltic area. As more nations also gain more advanced technologies, maritime strategy may change. (You might be surprised to learn which European country has the largest navy.)

But which countries are gaining power through their host of military ships and submarines? To identify emerging global powers with the most naval vessels, 24/7 Wall St. sourced data from Global Firepower’s 2025 Military Strength Ranking. This ranking evaluates 145 countries and their military power based on over 60 separate factors, and is updated annually. Each country is given a PowerIndex score, which accounts for how powerful its military is. The “perfect” (and thus unattainable) score is 0.000, so the closer to that number, the stronger the military. We evaluated “Powers on the Rise,” or countries who have gained or maintained power over the last year. Countries with no naval vessels were not included in our evaluation. Additional naval vessel information was also taken from Global Firepower. The countries are listed in ascending order to least to most military ships and submarines.

This previously published article was updated on March 28, 2025 to highlight changes in the navies of emerging powers through vessel acquisition, as well as to update the data based on the newly published Military Strength Ranking.

Why Cover This Now?

US+navy+Helicopter+carrier | An MH-60R Sea Hawk helicopter lands aboard USS Bulkeley.

The world has witnessed shifting power balances and alliances for as long as civilization has existed; these relationships have shaped, and continue to shape, the geopolitical landscape. While key players like the United States, China, and Russia are easily the global powers, there are a number of emerging military powers that have their own spheres of influence and give shape to geopolitical relations in their own unique way.

As conflicts rise across the globe, naval power is becoming a more prominent way to deter aggression and assert power. We’re seeing that importance in the increased prioritization of naval technology. Outside of the Finnish Navy, the Portuguese Navy is also planning to acquire at least six more offshore patrol vessels, and the Israeli Defense Force’s Chief of Staff emphasized that the Israeli Navy should become a long-form strategic arm of the IDF. By looking at which countries have the most military ships and submarines, you better understand who is positioned for immediate naval action should the need arise.

These are the 19 rising powers with the largest naval fleets: