Though a total global war may be the only way to truly determine which nation’s military is the most powerful, we hope that it never comes to that. Still, besides fighting each other, how can we figure out who has the strongest military on Earth? Is it determined by the number of soldiers in active duty? Or should we look at how advanced a country’s defense technology is? Maybe we can just look at the overall military budget?
By compiling these and other factors, some resources such as Global Fire Power, The Credit Suisse Report, and Nation Master have created a ranking system. This lets us bring you a list of the world’s strongest militaries. We’ll start with the smallest and lead up to biggest and baddest. Some of these are sure to give a surprise—did you know there’s a tiny island country that has more than 1.6 million soldiers ready to go at a moment’s notice? Keep reading to find out whose got the biggest stick on the block.