Special Report

Countries With the Most Military Firepower

Methodology

To determine the 20 countries with the strongest military might, 24/7 Wall St. reviewed 2023 Military Strength Ranking from Global Firepower, an annually updated defense-related statistics website with information on 145 countries. Global Firepower ranked 145 countries based on their PowerIndex, a composite of over 60 measures in categories such as military might, financials, logistical capability, and geography. The smaller the PowerIndex value the more powerful a nation’s theoretical conventional fighting capability is.  

Supplemental data on armed forces personnel and its percent of the population also came  from Global Firepower. Data on the number of active military aircraft for 2023 came from FlightGlobal, an aviation and aerospace industry website. Military expenditure data for 2022 came from Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.

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