I was curious if this was still the case and upon doing some research it seems that the stats regarding the “largest” Navies and Air Forces have changed in recent years. According to the Wikipedia page on US armed forces, it seems that the largest Air Force in the world is still the US Air Force, followed by the US Army Aviation Branch. The US Navy has fallen to the fourth largest Air Force in the world, while continuing to be the largest naval Air Force in the world.
Regarding Navy sizes, it seems that the US Navy has dropped to the fourth largest Navy in the world behind China, Russia, and North Korea (this one was rather surprising to me).
That said, the world’s two largest Air Forces still apparently belong to the US military. Furthermore, size does not necessarily equal power. Countries could inflate their numbers, or even presumably count vessels that aren’t what we would consider military vessels; e.g. pad their naval numbers by counting unrelated fishing boats as part of a Navy. When you factor in technology, training, and modernization of “old” equipment, it seems agreed that each branch of the US military is still the most powerful in the world compared to other countries respective military branches. And judging by the fact that the US military still has three (!!!) of the top 5 largest Air Forces in the world, as well as having each respective branch of its military in the world’s top 10 largest, I would hazard a guess that the power gap is quite large.
That is a fair point. I only skimmed a page of search results and a couple of articles, but I didn’t see any mention of weight measurements. That really could be a better way to measure “size” though. Assuming extra weight means more/better armaments, thicker hulls, more munitions, more sailors (and all of the supplies that go with them), etc. Not to mention how much weight a top-tier Air Force would add to a Navy’s weight. It’s quite staggering to think about and I’m sure I’m still not fully able to comprehend the sheer scale of it all.
I suppose a few trillion dollars per year will do that though 😅
Yep tonnage is a far better metric than number of hulls (while still not perfect obviously) If one country has 10 speedboats with machine-guns on the front and the other has an aircraft carrier it is slightly misleading to say the first countries navy is ten times larger.
Don’t think that value includes “items in the ship” (like aircraft) as part of the weight. This article seems to lay out what some of the differences are. Seems to boil down to “not evey Navy counts every canoe that they own”.
I suppose a few trillion dollars per year will do that though
I was curious if this was still the case and upon doing some research it seems that the stats regarding the “largest” Navies and Air Forces have changed in recent years. According to the Wikipedia page on US armed forces, it seems that the largest Air Force in the world is still the US Air Force, followed by the US Army Aviation Branch. The US Navy has fallen to the fourth largest Air Force in the world, while continuing to be the largest naval Air Force in the world.
Regarding Navy sizes, it seems that the US Navy has dropped to the fourth largest Navy in the world behind China, Russia, and North Korea (this one was rather surprising to me).
That said, the world’s two largest Air Forces still apparently belong to the US military. Furthermore, size does not necessarily equal power. Countries could inflate their numbers, or even presumably count vessels that aren’t what we would consider military vessels; e.g. pad their naval numbers by counting unrelated fishing boats as part of a Navy. When you factor in technology, training, and modernization of “old” equipment, it seems agreed that each branch of the US military is still the most powerful in the world compared to other countries respective military branches. And judging by the fact that the US military still has three (!!!) of the top 5 largest Air Forces in the world, as well as having each respective branch of its military in the world’s top 10 largest, I would hazard a guess that the power gap is quite large.
Depends on how you count “size”. US Navy is 4th in ship count, 1st in tonnage at 3.5m tons.
Russia is second at 800,000 tons
China is third at 700,000 tons
Japan is fourth at 400,000 tons
That is a fair point. I only skimmed a page of search results and a couple of articles, but I didn’t see any mention of weight measurements. That really could be a better way to measure “size” though. Assuming extra weight means more/better armaments, thicker hulls, more munitions, more sailors (and all of the supplies that go with them), etc. Not to mention how much weight a top-tier Air Force would add to a Navy’s weight. It’s quite staggering to think about and I’m sure I’m still not fully able to comprehend the sheer scale of it all.
I suppose a few trillion dollars per year will do that though 😅
Yep tonnage is a far better metric than number of hulls (while still not perfect obviously) If one country has 10 speedboats with machine-guns on the front and the other has an aircraft carrier it is slightly misleading to say the first countries navy is ten times larger.
Don’t think that value includes “items in the ship” (like aircraft) as part of the weight. This article seems to lay out what some of the differences are. Seems to boil down to “not evey Navy counts every canoe that they own”.
Yep, American Un-Healthcare at its finest 😁