Compared with last year, Poland has climbed four places in the international league table, Polish state news agency PAP reported.
Compiled by the Global Firepower website, the annual ranking gauges the military strength of the nations of the world, “based on current available firepower,” its authors said.
Poland now has more military might than the likes of Spain, Saudi Arabia and Taiwan, according to globalfirepower.com.
Top 3: US, Russia, China
The 2023 ranking is topped by the United States, ahead of Russia, China, India and Britain.
The rest of the Top 10 places are occupied by South Korea, Pakistan, Japan, France and Italy, according to globalfirepower.com.
Ukraine ranked 15th
Meanwhile, Ukraine has jumped from 22nd to 15th place in the global table, the PAP news agency reported.
Controversial criteria
The Global Firepower ranking uses more than 60 factors to determine a nation’s military strength, from quantity of military units and financial standing to logistics capabilities and geography.
However, military experts have noted that the international league table is based on some controversial criteria, taking into account old, out-of-use military hardware, for instance, according to PAP.
Specifically, countries are ranked according to the quantity of their military resources, without regard to the age, quality and technological features of weaponry at their disposal, PAP reported, citing Spain’s Vozpopuli website.
Thus, a country with a substantial number of out-of-use infantry fighting vehicles is ranked higher than a state with a smaller amount of more modern IFVs, according to Vozpopuli.
The Spanish website noted that these reservations applied mainly to Russia, according to PAP.
Vozpopuli added that “in the war with Ukraine, Russia has been unable to project its military strength and got drawn into a longer-than-expected conflict, with no prospect of an immediate conclusion,” PAP reported.
Friday is day 324 of Russia’s war against Ukraine.
(pm/gs)
Source: PAP, globalfirepower.com, ukrinform.net