on terrorists;
No they could never be as big a threat as a real country declared enemy.
terrorists depend on private money, that can be limited very quickly for many reasons. and they depend on menial recruitment and substandard training (because they do it privately)
even a stuffty country is only limited by its population to pour at the enemy. it almost don't even matter if you can afford a real war, some dictator can make it happen anyways.
on big armies;
Iraq had the largest Armour units on earth both times we went in on them. biggest threat in the middle east.
it was laughable. we flattened them all in just hours
cant really judge power just by numbers anymore
It only takes one nuclear device to fall into the wrong hands before we face a nightmare. The fact is that's always a concern with these former Warsaw Pact countries selling hardware to the highest bidders.
Then I don't know where they're getting that from.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_number_of_troops
G.B. Is shortstacked in almost every category.
Sirrus basically has the idea. Retz has no idea? I don't know, but this is how I interpret it.
Mostly the UK focuses on having a highly efficient force, much like the US. Able to engage in a lightning war using technological leaps to move men and material farther. The UK also has probably the most adapted hardware for beach assaults, most of their vehicles focus on amphibious assault tactics too. Think about it, England and the UK are all situated on an island, therefore a highly mobile set of Marines supported by the Navy is a logical conclusion. Then you have the combined arms of the RAF and the spearhead of the Army and Armoured Corps.
But there's a point when the lightning war hits a roadblock, the 250th mile is generally when people and immediate supply resources are exhausted. It is in fact technology which is this roadblock, tanks guzzle 8 gallons of fuel per mile, and that adds up to a monumental scale of logistics that needs to be incorporated with a highly mobile assault. Trucks aren't armored too, and trucks containing fuel for equipment are very volatile, so you can really slow down an advance by attacking the very lightly armored logistical supply train.
The stall in the lightning war is a very interesting problem. That's also how the British Expeditionary Force was able to leave Dunkirk in 1940.
A larger force isn't a guarantee for a successful defense or offense, Egypt grossly outnumbered Israel in the 1967 Arab Israeli war. Egypt was soundly defeated, along with Syria (both had outnumbered the Israelis). This was a combination of using tactics to a commander's advantage. More recently the Iraqi Republican Guard and Fedayeen outnumbered the American divisions, and were dealt with in a smart tactical manner (flanking and moving towards targets closer to Baghdad which hadn't prepared it's defenses fully)
