As we covered in a separate infographic, when it comes to manpower no military in the world comes close to that of China. According to Global Firepower estimates, the People’s Republic has 2.18 million active military personnel. The United States in comparison, has significantly less – 1.28 million – but when assessing the overall power of the world’s military forces, the U.S. comes out on top, ahead of Russia and China in second and third, respectively.

In response to retaliatory missile attacks by Iran on airbases in Iraq hosting United States and coalition troops, President Trump stated via Twitter that “we have the most powerful and well equipped military anywhere in the world, by far!”. Looking at the Global Firepower PowerIndex, the militaries of Russia and China do come very close, but when compared to Iran, the discrepancy is of course much larger.

source statista

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