Since 2005, the Global Firepower Index (GFP) has been providing an annual ranking of countries based on their military strength utilizing over 60 different factors. These factors are grouped into eight categories which are — geography, manpower, airpower, naval power, land power, financials, resources, and geography.
Among the top 10 countries, the United Kingdom (UK) and Pakistan have improved their positions, as the UK is ranked 5th and Pakistan is ranked 7th in the index compared to their previous 8th and 9th positions respectively. On the other hand, Japan and France were demoted to 8th and 9th positions from their previous 5th and 7th positions. One very interesting fact here is that despite a small amount of the Pakistani military budget which is ranked 29th among 145 countries, Pakistan has been able to beat other countries like Germany and France which have much bigger defense budgets. Moreover, Pakistan is ranked the top military power in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region which is followed by Turkey, Egypt, and Iran.
In GFP 2023, the United States is ranked as the top military power in the world with a score of 0.0712 which was 0.0718 in the previous year. The second and third most powerful militaries are Russia and China with a score of 0.0714 and 0.0722 which were 0.0791 and 0.084 last year respectively.
Besides the top three, India has been maintaining its 4th position since 2006. It has the second-highest active military manpower after China which is 1,450,000. With access to nuclear power, India has 4740 battle tanks, 841 aircraft, and a growing economy of $3.5 trillion. One important thing to notice here is the growing gap between the top 3 and the rest of the countries in the index, as India has a score of 0.1025 compared to the Chinese score of 0.0722.
