Talk:List of countries by number of active troops

message: __TOC__
Um, the validity of this page is definately in question.  For starters, China is by far the country with the most active military personnell, not the US.  This page needs to be completely reworked as it is horribly innaccurate.  thanks!  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Teddyhaarz (talk • contribs) 01:00, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

message: Basji which is a civil defence force is counted. I think either Basji number be removed or add civil defense forces be added to all nations list. It is better to remove Basji and other civil defence forces from the list rather than add all the population numbers.
Chanakyathegreat 16:47, 18 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Stay on topic, please. Also, the numbers for the force were completely bogus. There are 2 sources now that have corrected it.—DMCer™ 11:05, 25 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Wow... way to go Iran

message: "Amount" of active troops??? I really think that should be "number". - Randwicked 09:56, 24 Apr 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Moved. - Randwicked 07:08, 26 Apr 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: the meaning of active troops is also somewhat open to interpretation as an English phrase. It has a formal meaning in an American context, so I understand, but is that really comparable to other states armed forces ? For example, the French Navy personnel establishment includes the (effectively) civilian fire-fighting force for Marseilles. Anyway, any proposal along the lines of removing the 'active troops' designation would no doubt be met with a lot of "well lots of people know what it means" messages from (principally) Americans, so I'll content myself with just making this note.--jrleighton 10:17, 9 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Article title

message: Whoever keeps adding the vatican, please stop. They do not have any independent troops. And, rememember this page is sourced by the World Almanac, which does not mention any troops in the Vatican. --  Earl Andrew - talk 17:37, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Please stop 

message: Excuse me,but i think that in this article there's something wrong. In the list are mentioned 161 countries,while the countries in the world are 193. Now,from the article "List of countries without an army" we know that 14 countries have not an army. Total,175 countries. But 18 countries are missing : they are Bhutan,Iraq, Maldive Islands,Comoros,Mauritius,Sao Tome and Principe,Somalia,Swaziland, Dominica,Grenada,Saint Kitts and Nevis,Saint Lucia,Saint Vincent and Grenadine,Solomon Islands,Samoa,Tonga,Tuvalu,Vanuatu. Why don't these countries are included in the list?
:The World Almanac doesn't list any armies for these nations. It's quite possible they are too small. Iraq and Somalia for example dont even have a functioning government yet, or are in transition. --  Earl Andrew - talk 17:53, 18 Jun 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I added a link at the bottom of the article to the "List_of_countries_without_an_army" article. It certainly seems relevant to point out that not all countries actually have a standing army. MMad 21:16, 6 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  TROOPS 

message: It is quite confusing to list the number of active troops in thousands. No one thinks of 1,000,000 (one million) troops as 1000 x 1000 (one thousand times one thousand). I believe it would be in order to change the list from the "in thousands" system to the "in millions" systems. -- Mb1000 7 July 2005 17:55 (UTC)
: Well most people understand that "in thousands" means "followed by 3 zeros". -- Earl Andrew - talk 7 July 2005 18:04 (UTC)
But doesn't "in millions" make more sense? --Mb1000 23:31, 11 July 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: No, because you will have a lot more numbers after the decimal point. You might as well just put the whole number in. For example, turkey's troops "in millions" would say 	0.51485. Antigua and Barbuda would be at 0.00017. Does this seem reasonable to you? -- Earl Andrew - talk 01:00, 12 July 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  "In Thousands" Vs. "In Millions" 

message: Sorrry, but isn't the order a little wrong? For example, the list says America has some 1.4 million troops, and Russia around 1.7 million, but America is listed first. Same with India and North Korea. I didn't want to change it, because I might just be making a stupid mistake.
:Anonymous bumped Russia up the list but mixed up the rankings. I've reverted the last changes until someone can justify the higher figure for Russia. - Randwicked 17:45, 12 August 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Russia has 960,000 troops, not 1.7 million. -- Earl Andrew - talk 17:53, 12 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Order 

message: Can I know what is the source for this data.. According to this forbes article, the Indian Army is the 2nd largest !! -- 02:33, 30 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Try looking at the bottom where it says "source" ;-) -- Earl Andrew - talk 03:47, 30 September 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Source? 

message: Is it possible for someone to figure out the ranking for the EU in Toto? Much appreciated if you can :) Sri Theo 23:06, 31 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: The EU

message: Changes:
* links to military for every country
* more consistent, less verbose use of flag templates
* various typo fixes
* standardized whitespace in source for readability
* active troops per 1000 added for every country
* cleanup tag removed
If there is anything else that needs to be done, please mention here...
Brianski 08:46, 27 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Article cleaned up 

message: It seems to me the subject of this Edit war was new information vs. the cited information.
Could this not be resolved by merely saying something like:
Unless otherwise noted,
* Source of active duty information: World Almanac, 2005
* Source of population information: List of countries by population
And having a series of footnotes for information from newer sources?
Also, it strikes me that when there are divergent estimates of active duty information, we should make the figure a range, as has already been done for some countries due to uncertainty, and adjust rank, etc. appropriately.
Is this an acceptable way to move forward?
Brianski 03:59, 14 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, as long as everything is cited. Unfortunately, the vandals (whether well intentioned or not) did not cite anything. -- Earl Andrew - talk 04:20, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

text: No actual source was given. I think it is only fair that you review ALL ministry of defence websites before changing this list. Otherwise, inconsistencies will arise. -- Earl Andrew - talk 07:13, 18 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Edit War / page protection 

message: It's been 2 weeks. Long enough. --Woohookitty(cat scratches) 11:20, 1 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Unprotecting 

message: There should also be some sorting options. The media always uses rankings such as the commonly repeated line "at the time of the gulf war Iraq had the world's 4th largest land army", but sometimes they say 3rd. Obviously the size of a land army is much different than the size of the total armed forces, particularly if you're counting officers and non-combat personell. The U.S. military may be 1.5 million strong, but the U.S. army is not even a third that size. There should be different lists sorted by size of land army (number of boots on the ground), navies (sorted by number and classes of ships) and over-all active duty militaries. As well as spending, % GDP military spending and reserve numbers taken into account in some way. The North Korean active military is 1.08 million compared to the U.S. 1.5 Million, but the U.S. has about an equal number of reserves available if including the National Gaurd, but North Koreas is sometimes cited as having over 4 million reserves. I think these statistics need to be more comprehensive, more interlinked, and more specific. Especially since national defense is such a hot research topic today. -Anonymous User
>> I made a sorted page and linked it by the traditional UI affordance of making the column header a link or action to show sorted numbers. Of course there are no macros or the like in Wikipedia, so we have to keep it as a static page and keep it updated - worse is that having it now may make it grow stale when this page is updated. :/ --Ken Chasse 2006-Dec-06 16:50 UTC
-- 
As for merge vs sort, we also have this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_number_of_total_troops which looks like another spinoff of the same data. Keeping these in sync is going to be really difficult. Whats the standard mechanism for this on Wikipedia? We need a common database type structure for different views of the same info. No idea how that would work tho! (beyond the scope of this article :) 
-- Ken Chasse 2006-Dec-06 16:50 UTC
--
I'm not sure if Wikipedia added the "sort" function after this discussion, but I was thinking it might be a good thing to add. My only problem is that I'm not sure of the finer technical details. Specfically, I don't know how to keep the rank numbers from sorting with the rest of the data. Also, does anyone know of a way to either isolate the later header rows from the sorting process, or create some sort of floating header row that will keep the headers visible when you page through the table.
-- Farside268 15:10, 8 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Sorting 

message: Which idiot has included Turkey in the list. The numbers don't add up.
Turkey has 1,054,750 active soldiers http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turkish_Armed_Forces#cite_ref-2.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 160.75.145.210 (talk) 08:18, 13 August 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Turkey 

message: Why is india suddenly first?? It says it includes "paramilitary forces". Well this is exactly why I advocate categorizing this data better and being more comprehensive. The U.S. number does not count the national gaurd. And I know for a fact China has a very large number of paramilitaries. But adding paramilitaries for one country and not another is silly, unfair, inconsistant, misleading and leads to ambiguity. I suggest someone either revamps the whole thing to include more specific numbers and a complete break down (including reserves, paramilitaries, national gaurd, etc) or put India back where it was.
- Anonomous User, 1/21/06
: Vandalism. I have given up watching this page as it needs to be updated with 2006 data. -- Earl Andrew - talk 19:17, 28 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  India?? 

message: This is how this Page should be categorized.
What do you guys think?
Feel free to delete this, but just giving u an idea
This is how this page should be organized with a proper break down.
Also, we need to create sub-pages where each country is sorted by the size of each individual service.  Such as countries with the largest armies, etc.
Rank		Nation       	Army   	Navy   	Air Force	Marines	Paramilitary Forces	Other                  	TOTAL    	Armed Forces per  thousand citizens
3   		United States	500,203	375,521	358,612  	176,202	National Guard #   	40,151 (US Coast Guard)	1,427,000	4.79
7   		Pakistan     	620,000	27,000 	65,000   	0      	288,000            	0                      	1,000,000	6.23
It Looks great but getting the nummbers for each country will be hard so there will be alot of question marks
Also you should add a section called space troops :D
Russia and China have space troops :D
Deng 08-02-06 04.30 CET
Don't be bloody stupid.
::Hmmm, space troops.  I think space troops can go in the other category.  The problem with making a seperate category for every branch of the military for each specific country means there are many countries who don't have those kind of forces.  So it will look very un-organized.  This article needs to be totally re-designed. User:Mercenary2k Feb 9, 2006 2:19 AM (Toronto, Canada)
The US National Guard is not a paramilitary oganisation, its controlled by the US government.
:P
Shayanshaukat (talk) 13:45, 27 April 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  This is How this page should be organized 

message: Iran:
Navy: 20,000
Army: 1,092,000 (including reserves)
Marines: 3,000 (The Marines are not a seperate branch in Iran, they're part of the Navy, so that would make the Navy 23,000)
Air Force: 52,000
Special Forces (IRGC/Pasdaran): 280,000 (excluding it's Air, Naval, and militia branches)
Paramilitary (Baseej): 11,000,000 (1,000,000 always on active service, the rest on a regular basis)
::I dont think we use reserved when counting the number of troops.  for example, pakistan's land army has 620,000 men and 513,000 reserves.  but i list their land army as being only 620,000 men.  since this is active troops.
:::Without the reserves, it's 400,000
:::Change added to Iran, with the above numbers... (excluding reserves and two branches of the IRGC).
The reserves should be included for all countries, because during a war all avaliable forces will be used.--Moosh88 21:31, 5 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Re: Iran?? 

message: Where did the 3+ million nummber come from.
As far as I know china is cuting down on humans and increaseing on equipment both in quality and quantity. So where did the 3+ million nummber come from. The nummber I know is around 2.3 million a so-so source can be found here http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-chimilitary10jan10,1,5305327.story?coll=la-headlines-world
It is an American paper called the LA times I dont know how good they are but the figure seems about right. So who ever gave the 3+ million I think either counted in the Normal Police or maybe knows something. Maybe china is planing a war and therefore has increased it nummbers.
Deng  08-02-06 12.40 CET
I believe that includes the paramilitary, which has about 1 million personnels, so 2.25 million + 1 million =3.25 million
===force size===
69.164.121.206's edits seems like a vandalism. I've never heard that size of PRC's paramilitary forces was reduced to 1 million.
Military Review published by USACAC  even shows that:
:The PAP and militia are paramilitary organizations....The PLA has undergone two large reductions in force in the past decade, starting with about 3 million people in 1995 and losing 500,000 people from 1997 to 2000 and another 200,000 from 2003 to 2005. Chinese sources note that by the end of 2005 the PLA will have about 2.3 million people on its active duty roster. As the largest component of the PLA with the lowest priority in modernization, army ground forces suffered the largest proportion of cuts. Current estimates put the number at 1.6 million—down about 500,000 from 1995. Reserve personnel, most of whom are in reserve army units, number about 800,000. The PAP might have up to 1.5 million in its ranks. The primary militia, according to a 2004 defense white paper, has 10 million members, but the number of ordinary militia, presumably a larger force, was not announced.
:[Chinese Army Modernization: An Overview, pp69-70, emphasis added]
Not simply PAPf. The number of PRC's paramilitary troops is about 11,500,000.
- 202.40.137.202 06:58, 26 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: China

message: 69.164.121.206's edits seems like a vandalism. I've never heard that size of PRC's paramilitary forces was reduced to 1 million.
Military Review published by USACAC  even shows that:
:The PAP and militia are paramilitary organizations....The PLA has undergone two large reductions in force in the past decade, starting with about 3 million people in 1995 and losing 500,000 people from 1997 to 2000 and another 200,000 from 2003 to 2005. Chinese sources note that by the end of 2005 the PLA will have about 2.3 million people on its active duty roster. As the largest component of the PLA with the lowest priority in modernization, army ground forces suffered the largest proportion of cuts. Current estimates put the number at 1.6 million—down about 500,000 from 1995. Reserve personnel, most of whom are in reserve army units, number about 800,000. The PAP might have up to 1.5 million in its ranks. The primary militia, according to a 2004 defense white paper, has 10 million members, but the number of ordinary militia, presumably a larger force, was not announced.
:[Chinese Army Modernization: An Overview, pp69-70, emphasis added]
Not simply PAPf. The number of PRC's paramilitary troops is about 11,500,000.
- 202.40.137.202 06:58, 26 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: force size

message: Just how trained are Iran's Paramilitary forces??
India and Pakistan have very strong paramilitary forces are active in conducting operations and are battle hardened.
::Iran's paramilitary is very well trained, and many of those in it right now have also fought in the Iran-Iraq war. Without them Iran would have lost. There is even talk of making a third official ground force of 1 million soldiers (from the paramilitary).
Like the above posted said, Iran's paramilitary troops are very well trained and as good if not better than Pakistan.--Moosh88 21:29, 5 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: No idea but i think that can't be true, thato Iran has 11 Mio trained paramilitarian forces. Then Iran would have the largest army in the whole world. --134.147.116.12 23:40, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Iran's Paramilitary 

message: Why does the U.S. suddenly have 2.300.000 men? Even on the posted link it says only 1.400.000.
Exactly, you can even ask soldiers in the American military, they will tell you that the American military has 1.4 million.
The U.S. military has 1.4 million ACTIVE troops and 2.300.000 total.
User:Daniel_Chiswick 23 March, 2007
Well actually the United States has a total of 1,426,700 Active troops.
And 1,458,500 Reserve. With 53,000 active Paramilitary troops. And
5,000 reserve Paramilitary troops. With a TOTAL of 2,943,200 troops
Both in Active and Reserve. 4 January, 2008  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Joshua alvara (talk • contribs) 05:44, 5 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  US troops 

message: Someone proposed a new format for the chart, and while I agree, I think it should be different.
We could refer to the military balance for the numbers.
With a chart including:
Active Military/Reserve Force/Paramilitary/Active troop per thousand citizens
This is just an example... not actual numbers. Rank will be based on Active troops only and not total, as Active troops are the backbone of the force for most countries.
Rank		Nation       	Active Duty	Reserve Force	Paramilitary (Active)	Total    	Active troops per thousand citizens
3   		United States	1,420,000  	900,000      	50,000               	2,370,000	4.79
I think this is easier as the numbers can be easily retrieved from the Military Balance of 2005-2006.
The US doesn't have 1,420,000 active troops, its only just over a million troops. Get it right.
This is a cool idea.
Edited the page to my idea. But it needs to be formated and it needs major work. Contribute people.
::Looks very nice. Much better than first. ArmanJan
No one change it, its better now and we can all get the chance to contribute to it.
Thanks ArmanJan for fixing up the table. This still needs a lot of work. I think I may go to the library and search for the 2005-2006 Military Blance and see if we could bring these numbers up to date. *Remember folks, contribute when you have a source. No source and it is not valid.
Nice Job on this page.  It must have been very tedious work.  A lot of cutting and pasting.  You must have been tired after all that.  Anyways, I am going to this site, http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/ 
to get reserve and paramilitary forces numbers...
I suggest you guys do the same...
Mercenary2k
To the poster of "The US doesn't have 1,420,000 active troops, its only just over a million troops. Get it right." You should take note of this sentence: "This is just an example... not actual numbers."  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 202.161.15.101 (talk) 09:11, 1 September 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Suggestion 

message: We have an List of countries by number of active troops but we should also create other pages like:
List of countries by number of Reserve force
-->This list should rank countries by which country has the largest reserve forces.
List of countries by number of Paramilitary
-->This list should rank countries by which country has the largest paramilitary forces
List of countries by number of Total troops
-->This list should rank countries by which country has the overall largest total troops
List of countries by number of Active troops per thousand citizens
-->This list should rank countries by who has the highest ratio of active troops to thousand citizens
What do you guys think??
Mercenary2k April 16, 2006 12:06PM
:Yes, this is desirable. And could someone PLEASE readd the EU? They're listed for comparison in these articles: List of countries by GDP (nominal), List of countries by GDP (PPP), List of countries by exports, List of countries by agricultural output, List of countries by carbon dioxide emissions and List of countries by electricity consumption, so why not here?
::Because the EU doesn't have a unified military. Skinnyweed 19:43, 27 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  New articles for other categories 

message: Why does Russia have anywhere from two to twenty million reserves? I mean, why is the estimate that broad? And if they do actually have twenty million reserves, that would make them the most powerful infantry in the world.
:Well duh... IT'S RUSSIA!
-G
:Russian Reserve Component is a pure fiction - it simply consists of every relatively healthy male up to the age of 45, whether or not he served by draft or even modestly trained, and no reservists are spawned to routine excersizes. That's the reason why generals do not wish to reduce the huge drafted active component, despite many questions regarding the viability of 1 million standing army. --Dmitry 06:38, 26 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: PS. The 20 million figure was introduced by [ this recent edit] by .
Well I changed it back. Mathieu121 20:33, 26 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Russia 

message: Not being an American, perhaps some kind soul can write an article to clarify what the term 'active troops' means - or some other method of clarifying its meaning.
In particular, I think the following points need to be brought out:
* inclusive of reserve forces, or merely regular (i.e. full time) forces only (there is a "list of total troops by country" with the same headings as this list)
* includes uniform combatants only, or is the number extended to include:
** uniformed but non combative (i.e. medics, chaplains, etc)
** rear echelon troops (the people manning the home country stores depots for instance)
** government employed munitions workers (the US in particular seems to have a few government owned munitions factories - e.g Redstone Arsenal
** the US Corps of Engineers, who I think (but I may be mistaken) principally (but not only) carry out USA based activities to aid the civil authorities
* includes troops in the course of basic training (i.e. are we only counting fully trained people here)
* the people who man naval stores ships (the US, I think, includes these in their naval personnel figures, whilst the equivalent UK body, the RFA is entirely civilian]]
The reason I mention this, apart from my pedantic nature, is that the term 'active troops' seems to be splashed about Wikipedia a lot, but there is no clarification as to what it means.  The most simple meaning (and probably the most likely) is "the people employed by that organisation".  The implication in listing "active troops" as a measure to compare fighting forces is that all such troops would, somehow, be available were the country concerned at war.  A better measure would therefore be the number of trained troops in front line military units. I suppose even that is a bit vague and there is the issue of how it would be measured.  Perhaps this is what "active troops" means already.   
Still seeking clarity here. What does "active troops" mean to Americans, whose term, after all, this is ?--Phillip Fung 09:38, 24 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: So why, Mr Consecending Master Regal, doesn't the article state the unambiguous term "full-time troops" in place of the US-derived jargon "active troops".
What about civilians supporting the military?  It doesn't seem like they should be included in the totals, but at least for New Zealand, they are for some reason. AceNZ (talk) 01:40, 16 July 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Active Troops ? 

message: I support adding the EU only because on the military budget page, it is mentioned. It is also mentioned on many other ranking lists. The only thing is, I will not rank the EU because officialy it does not have a centralized military. The numbers will represent a potential military size.
::Does the EU even have the authority to deploy troops? Maybe add NATO but definitely not EU. 67.180.147.127 07:12, 20 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Back to the EU thing. 

message: hi guys
i have been adding citations and correcting the military numbers for a lot of countries
can you guys help me out
http://www.tau.ac.il/jcss/balance/glance.pdf
go to that site, it has statistics of militaries in the middle east and north africa
please update all the countries there
thanx again
Mercenary2k 23:11, 26 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: never mind, did it my self Mercenary2k 01:05, 27 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Can you guys add citations? 

message: Ok, there seems to be a big difference concerning the active troops of these countries.
Iran's Active Troops is 420,000 not 768,000. Here is the source: http://www.csis.org/media/csis/pubs/060626_asia_balance.pdf  (Page 33)
Russia's Active Troops is 1,037,000 not 1,130,000. Here is the source: http://www.csis.org/media/csis/pubs/060626_asia_balance.pdf  (Page 33)
Turkey's Active Troops is 514,850 not 680,000. Here is the source: http://www.csis.org/media/csis/pubs/060626_asia_balance.pdf  (Page 33)
Also, in regards to Turkey, the Economist States on Page 23 that Turkey has 1,043,550 Total Troops and your total is coming to 1,060,000 which is not correct. Turkey's Active Troops is 514,850. Its Reserves are 380,000 (http://www.tau.ac.il/jcss/balance/Turkey.pdf). And Turkey does indeed have a Paramilitary its called the Gendarmarie and Coast Guard which are both classified as Paramilitary by Turkey. Turkey's Paramilitary stands at 148,700. After which you add 513,850+380,000+148,700 = 1,043,550 which is exactly what the economist states the size of Turkey's total troops.
Now, if you guys find different information in regards to these 3 countries. Please post the sources here.
I am not trying to annoy anyone, I just want this site to have the most accurate and most up to date information possible.
Mercenary2k 07:11, 30 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I would like to add that most sources only think Iran has one armed force (like all other countries), however Iran has two armed forces. One is the regular armed forces (which has 520.000 active soldiers according to Military Balance), and the other is the IRGC, which has 350.000 active soldiers according to Global Security.  Then there is the basij (which is actually part of the IRGC), and that has an estimated 11 million soldiers.  ArmanJan 13:56, 31 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Russia, Turkey and Iran  

message: Ok Guys,
I added citations besides all the numbers so we know which numbers are backed up by facts and which numbers need citations.
So in order to get this page done, we need to find the citations for the numbers stated and fill in the N/A with numbers and after that this page is done.
Mercenary2k 08:02, 1 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  What more needs to be done 

message: I stumbled across this article and the main table appears to be broken; with align tags being shown and so forth. I have limited experience with setting up and fixing tables in wikipedia articles, so I added it to the list of articles needing cleanup in the hope someone with more skill can sort it out.
:The hell happened here.  This table had no problems and suddenly today, the entire table is screwed up.
weird.   68.48.164.178 19:59, 4 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Ok, Figured out the problem. Any number which has the tag  is screwed up. I hope someone can fix this.  68.48.164.178 20:15, 4 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Cleanup 

message: Here is why the table is screwed up.
Any Row which has the tag "" or "" is not being read properly.
So we need to fix that and everything will be fixed.
68.48.164.178 07:31, 6 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Why the Table is Screwed up 

message: Would it not make sence to add NATO seen as it is a military organization. Izax143 10:50, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  NATO? 

message: i added a whole lot of citations...
if anyone can find others, please add them....
i want every single number to be accompanied with a citation
if we work together, we call can make this an awesome page
Mercenary2k 08:47, 28 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  added a whole lot of citations 

message: I can find nothing in the Indonesian citation's link. Nielswik 14:49, 11 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Works for me. http://www.csis.org/media/csis/pubs/060626_asia_balance_powers.pdf (Page 35) Mercenary2k 08:59, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Indonesian citation's link is broken 

message: Someone has put Canada in twice.
The entry at 61st place is the correct one but for someone reason there is another at 11th with numbers completely out of whack.
Can someone clean this up?
:fixed it, some joker replaced iran with canada there Mercenary2k 10:26, 15 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Canadian Forces's numbers 

message: The Germany Military has only 250.000 people
http://www.bundeswehr.de/portal/a/bwde/kcxml/04_Sj9SPykssy0xPLMnMz0vM0Y_QjzKLd4w3DAgCSYGZbn76kTCxoJRUfV-P_NxUfW_9AP2C3IhyR0dFRQALiGVU/delta/base64xml/L3dJdyEvd0ZNQUFzQUMvNElVRS82X0FfMVEw
German has no para-military groups!
Actually the Bundesgrenzschutz was paramilitary, but went integrated into Federal Police they lost the combatant status. SO paramilitary should be 0. But I don't have a source for that.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 137.193.11.27 (talk) 09:47, 20 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Germany 

message: this page shows that iran has 11,000,000 total troops, but the page that ranks according to total men lists vietnam as 1st with 9,000,000 and ranks iran as having only 930,000. which one is the correct one?
:it depends. the 11 million are a militia but are badly trained and rarely have they been called up and the 40,000 are pure paramilitary forces who are properly trained. so there is a debate going on.... Mercenary2k 16:29, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  active troops vs. total (IRAN) 

message: ...shows Serbia and Montenegro, but such a State Union no longer exists ever since this year's secession of Montenegro. The map should show Montenegro and Serbia separately. --PaxEquilibrium 21:30, 8 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  The map.. 

message: Can some one please find out the number of South Africa Military reserves, does the per 1000 ratio include only active duty personnel and should police forces be included in the paramilitary section? Goldfishsoldier 09:12, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  South African Reserve Numbers 

message: Somebody suggested it earlier but I think this article should absorb the total troop article because they literally have the same information but in a different order.  Actually literally is too strong a word because there are some small differences.  The merger should sort them out (e.g. Brazil: 285,000 or 385,600 paramilitaries). Makgraf 19:39, 17 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Agree a merge. I don't like the term 'active troops'. As an English language phrase, it is almost indistinguishable from 'troops'. However, I have since learnt that American English speakers understand this term to mean regular forces troops.  US specific jargon should be avoided in favour of plain English, unless the context clearly excuses it. --203.218.93.53 11:19, 3 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Merge 

message: There's something weird going on here (other than the fact that Ethiopia's citation is mislabeled "Eritrea").  It is simply not credible that Ethiopia has no reserves.  More over the citation that Eritrea has 250,000 reserves seems to be from this sentence: "The National Service programme has had a mixed reception. The second batch of 26,000 youngsters passed out of Sawa military training camp in July: 250,000 are due to be trained in five years. Some soldiers believe the real aim of National Service is to disband the liberation army and build a more malleable force." .  More-over I can't find the 162,500 number in the Ethiopia citation .  I'm going to change the number of active Ethiopian troops to 182,500, from the same source that the Eritrean figures are provided .  If anyone knows the reserve figures that would be great.  Makgraf 00:30, 9 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Ethiopia and Eritrea 

message: Isn't the US National Guard somewhat of a reserve force? I really think it should be included in at least that count. Plus about a fifth of the National Guard is currently serving in Iraq, is that counted in the active troops section? These statistics don't necessarily reflect differences between nations as to how their forces are classified. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 67.180.147.127 (talk) 07:18, 20 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  US National Guard 

message: In the Military of Iran article, it clearly says that the Basij army is 90,000 full-time + 300,000 reservists. The further 11 million is the equivlent of draft pickings. I don't think it needs to be included in the paramilitary count. 
"Iran also has a paramilitary volunteer force called the Basij (or Baseej), which includes about 90,000 full-time, active-duty uniformed Basij members, up to 300,000 reservists, and a further 11 million men and women who could be mobilized.[5]" —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 67.180.147.127 (talk) 07:19, 20 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Iran's paramilitary force 

message: According to 2007 israel has currently 187,000 troops in active duty and 168,000 was the number at 2002... —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 89.138.87.226 (talk) 08:26, 2 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Israeli Active troops number is outdated... 

message: The figure in the article (4++/1000) appears to be wrong. The US has a population of 300 million and the number of troops is about 2.3 million. However,  (2.3/300)*1000 = 7.67. How is it 4 per 1000 persons?
:We are only taking into account the Active troops number which is 1.4 million —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Mercenary2k (talk • contribs) 05:29, 23 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  US Army per 1000 figure Wrong?... 

message: and update source to more reliable source http://www.rferl.org/featuresarticle/2005/09/f93d378c-9321-4d56-a459-64cc54743f7f.html Macutty 03:02, 28 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Changed Iran's numbers

message: ----
It is stupid! Why are you idiots changing Iran's number of troops all the time! It belongs on number #1, (only military, and only based on number, not one quality), according to the number of total troops. Kermanshahi is right about that.
Perhaps, when you look at strenght of the military, it comes out other country's have more military potential, or have better weapens and better trained soldiers. But they haven't got as much troops and manpower as Iran, and I don't think they ever get as much as Iran. Perhaps, later on, another country gets more than eleven million total troops. But as long as no other country has that enormous count of troops, Iran needs to remain on #1. So don't change it, please. It doesn't make any sense to keep on changing numbers and ranking, if frequently has been proven, that they just have the most total troops.   
Mrlob 19:41, 6 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Do not change the numbers of Iran, all the time!

message: On CISIS page 35 there says that Myanmar has 428 thousand soldiers not 375 thousand so I've changed it and I have added the paramilitary of 72 thousand that, 'cause thats also mentioned on the military of Myanmar page.
the Honorable Kermanshahi 07:43, 5 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Changed Myanmars Numbers

message: I was wondering who the one person in the UK paramilitary was. Sounds like a lonely job.
: I also saw that, why don't we put his/her name up? Must be someone we know. FFMG (talk) 15:33, 18 June 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  UK Paramilitary 

message: As faras I know Croatia has no paramilitary forces. The quoted site only sais: Croatia 2002. 10 000. I was wondering where did the author found paramilitary troops. Croatian paramilitary force HOS was merged with Croatian army in 1992.
:That site is showing the number of paramilitary forces for each country. thats it, nothing else Mercenary2k 22:09, 3 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Croatia paramilitary ? 

message: This source US Department of State, Iraq Weekly Status Report August 15, 2007 sais Iraq has got 359,500 soldiers while on the page there sais 179,500. The Honorable Kermanshahi 16:03, 7 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Iraqi Security Forces

message: The source for the number of paramilitary troops in France mentions this number for the Gendarmerie. 
The Gendarmerie is not a paramilitary organisation, but an integral part of the Army, put at the disposal of the Ministry of Interior. For instance officers are formed in Army schools and can take up Gendarmerie assignments if they wish to. 
I think that this status should be revised. Rama 13:12, 28 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: this is a truly unbelievable edit comment. We have official sources from the French Ministry of Defence, and we should replace them with obviously shaky ones (which mistakes the Gendarmerie with a paramilitary organisation and give an estimate of the reserve off the mark by an order of magnitude and a half) just because it would question the infallibility of the source ? User:Yokmin16 has reverted this edit several times without providing any reason to do so, and does not even challenge the sources I provide. I find this behaviour extremely peculiar. Rama 20:20, 7 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  Yeah but the point is that the Gendarmerie is like a paramilitary force and putting it as part of the army would just inflate France's number of active troops. Dapiks (talk) 05:08, 20 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  They are active troops, as you acknowledge yourself. Thus it is not "inflating" the number of active troops, only giving it its true value. That the role held by the Gendarmerie in France would be held in some other countries by paramilitary forces is irrelevant, it is organic structure that counts. By every criteria, the Gendarmerie is a military force, part of the French military, and we have sources which confirm this. Rama (talk) 09:16, 20 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  France paramilitary 

message: The sorting tabs at the top of each column would be very helpful indeed...unfortunately, they do not currently work properly. They seem to be sorting according to some kind of 'alphabetical' formula rather than a numerical one. Hence 11,200 appears between 104,500 and 110,000, which is of course grossly inaccurate. Phantomopus 23:29, 29 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Sort" Tabs use wrong algorithm 

message: I can't find Azerbaijan anywhere on the list and I think it has a military I don't know its current numbers so don't feel qualified, could someone put it on?--Hon. Abe 20:44, 3 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Azerbaijan 

message: Germany has no paramilitary forces.
The former Bundesgrenzschutz is now Bundespolizei.
During the 1990s they were transformed from a paramilitary unit to a regular police of the federal government. That should be changed. --87.157.207.82 21:28, 11 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  German Paramilitary Forces 

message: Some day soon, when it's too snowy to work and I'm bored, I just might add a "Total Population" column to the list, just so that readers may get another perspective of the proportion of military to total citizenry. Of course, if anyone else wishes to beat me to it, go right ahead!Rathersane (talk) 06:43, 25 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  A new column 

message: The Kurdish Peshmerga Military has not only 180.000 people. The Peshmerga has 250.000 people.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peshmerga  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.58.34.229 (talk) 16:38, 4 March 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Can you please provide a reliable source for your changes (wikipedia isn't a soruce) and insert it into the article via references when you make changes? Otherwise your changes can't be relied on for accuracy and thus will be reverted. Thanks.Sbw01f (talk) 23:58, 7 March 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Peshmerga 

message: The source provided for the Kurd army doesn't actually mention Kurdistan anywhere. Are they considered a real army? If so, does anyone have any real sources for their numbers?Sbw01f (talk) 00:00, 8 March 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Kurdistan doesn't claim to be a country therefore it is original research to put it under "List of countries" article. Troops in North of Iraq belong to the Iraqi government. -- Cat chi? 00:15, 8 March 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Kurd army?

message: A lot of vandalism has been done to this article threwout the years, a lot of it has not been reverted yet, I'll be going threw it soon to change all figures to that what sais on the source. The Honorable Kermanshahi (talk) 20:54, 10 April 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Vandalism

message: St.Kitts and Nevis, San Marino, Iceland, and Monacco need to be added on this list. They were previously on the "countries without armed forces" page but are being removed because they do have armed forces. ANK 71.244.249.243 (talk) 15:55, 19 April 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Be Bold! and add it yourself along with references. --SMS  Talk 16:07, 19 April 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  New countries need to be added 

message: Azerbaijan is a independent count in soutern caucasus, they have the largest army of the causus and are ranked 48th by military budget ($2 billion) and yet they are still missing from this list?!?! We need to add Azerbaijan to this list as soon as possible! The numbers of their military can be found in the Military of Azerbaijan  page. 126.400 active personnel; 575.000 reserve forces; 15.000 paramilitary troops; 250 troops deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.146.213.29 (talk) 10:23, 28 April 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Indeed this is disturbing, but the texting is so primitive that you have to change every number below Azerbaijan. Azerbaijan should be ranked 38th in this list.Baku87 (talk) 15:37, 11 August 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Azerbaijan is missing

message: Anyone else notice that the number of paramilitary troops employed in the British armed forces is an impressive one! Im guessing that there is most likely a typo, but if not it would be very nice if this fine man or woman could be named in the table, along the lines of eg... #of paramilitary: 1, Mr Geoff Billingsby from Chipping Norton. I hazard a guess that there may be a few decimal places missing, and thus the British armed forces may be down a few thousend, even with such a spiffing job that Geoff is doing. Very ammusing though! :D Ginga123 (talk) 22:57, 19 July 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: UK, paramilitary

message: On the list No. 100 is missing.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Hawk08210 (talk • contribs) 20:16, 11 August 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: 100

message: How about adding a column for percentage of country's total population? I think that would be useful.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 194.144.36.199 (talk) 01:31, 9 September 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  % of total population 

message: While looking at this list I've noticed that it includes Transnistria, a region that is not itself a nation (it's part of Moldova) and therefore should not be in the list, regardless of if it's de facto independent or not.
Now of course if it's to saty then Taiwan and Kosovo (both of which are actually recognized by more then 5 countries) should be included and going by the status of Trasnistria Abkhazia and S. Osettia as well.
:-IkonicDeath  —Preceding undated comment was added at 00:38, 20 November 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Non-Nation Addition

message: The article has been listed for merge months ago and no action was taken. What do the articles regular editors say: merge or remove the tag and if so, why (motivate your opinion please). Thanks in advance,  Jouke Bersma Contributions 12:20, 25 November 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Merge: the articles have the exact same information and can be sorted in any way the reader likes.  It makes no sense to have two. Ndunruh (talk) 19:48, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

text: Merge In fact we have three articles with the same information.  There is List of countries by size of armed forces also.  I propose merging both articles into that one as it is the more comprehensive, as it includes air force and navy also.  I suggest breaking into three tables though, with navy and air force separate.  That will make the merge easier, List of countries by number of active troops and List of countries by number of total troops  seem better referenced than List of countries by size of armed forces‎ so could just be pasted in wholesale and delete the existing data in the article.  This will make it a lot easier to control. SpinningSpark 23:56, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

text: Merge I agree, having a single page with the details also means we will not end up having conflicting information. Lawbringer (talk) 13:57, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

text: merge All the same, but make redirects! Migdejong (talk) 22:18, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

text: Merge And make sure the information on naval units for instance is kept in the newly merged article. David (talk) 19:29, 13 April 2009 (UTC)

text: Merge - As previously stated, the information already exists in List of countries by size of armed forces. I think this article is better formatted, but the information is definitely redundant enough to justify a merge. --Grahamdubya (talk) 20:12, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

text: Merge  I think merging it into List of countries by size of armed forces would be best.  I do, however, think that the latter article should be cleaned up.  Perhaps instead of having everything in one messy table, it can be broken up into number of troops, number/type of ships, etc., something along those lines. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Witan (talk • contribs) 04:34, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

text: (this may take a while) Jafeluv (talk) 09:04, 22 June 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Merge proposal

message: A discussion has been started at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Countries/Lists of countries which could affect the inclusion criteria and title of this and other lists of countries.  Editors are invited to participate. Pfainuk talk 11:59, 17 December 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: New Discussion

message: Bangladesh is listed as #34 but with active troops of "400,000+", which should put it at #13 (between Myanmar with 428,250 and Indonesia with 316,000.  Also, the source puts Bangladesh at 137,000, which should be #35.
Brazil is listed as #17 with 312,000 (between Taiwan with 290,000 (above) and Germany with 284,500 (below)).  The source connected to it doesn't seem to support that number (312,000), but the source for the number of reservists ad paramilitary (currently listed as 285,600, but the source says 385,600) seems to be legitimate and says Brazil's active troops are 287,600, which would make Brazil #17, exactly where it is now.
I'll fix up Brazil, but can someone deal with the mess with Bangladesh.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.47.151.139 (talk) 06:01, 15 January 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Bangladesh and Brazil 

message: As of 10 February 2009, the displayed total number of UK troops is 100,000,000. I'm sorry, but there aren't even one-hundred million people living in the UK. This needs to be corrected. This page is full of so many inaccuracies. Tong22 (talk) 11:03, 10 February 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: United Kingdom troop total

message: I don't know what to do here. In list Georgian troops have 17,500 . But if you click on Georgia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_of_Georgia you will be able to see there is wrong in the list  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Asas007pl (talk • contribs) 07:39, 22 June 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Georgia Troops