By Franz-Stefan Gady
What we usually leave out when considering a nation’s military strength.
Since our new Asia Defense blog will principally deal with the tactics, strategies, doctrines, technology, procurement patterns, and civil-military relations of the militaries of the Asia-Pacific region (including the United States), it may be worthwhile to re-visit Andrew Marshall’s classic (PDF) “Problems of Estimating Military Power” from August 1966, when Marshall still worked for the RAND corporation, to remind us of an important point when writing on defense issues.
Marshall (I recently wrote another piece on him) argues that the majority of attempts to measure military power are focused on tabulations such as number of men and women under arms, the number of airplanes, ships, and tanks in service, and percentage changes in annual (publicly available) defense budgets. This approach is best exemplified by the annual yearbook on military spending, compiled (PDF) by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI). In that regard, the yearbook numbers are useful to some degree but it actually tells us very little about the military strengths of the countries evaluated (the books do contain some analysis).
Looking at the availability of supply bases in a region, transport capacity, and other logistical considerations, along with an assessment of training methods, a force’s esprit de corps, officer to non-commissioned officer to enlisted men ratios, the number of institutes for higher military studies (staff colleges), command and control systems, and military doctrine, we may form a sharper image of a particular military force. However, this singular tunnel vision obviously neglects the dialectical nature of warfare, i.e., the interaction between two opposing forces and how the actions of one side shapes the actions of the other during a prolonged period of military conflict; as well as the relative nature of military competition: The strengths of one military force can only be assessed relative to another military force.
Read the full story at The Diplomat