The Bonn International Centre for Conversion has released its Global Militarisation Index.  And Israel tops the list as the world's most militarised nation.  Israel has topped this list for most of the past twenty years.  But Israel's main regional rival, Iran, is far behind.

www.ipsnews.net/2012/11/israel-ranked-as...

In second place is Singapore, followed by Syria, Russia, Jordan, and Cyprus.  And six of the top states are located in the Middle East.

The index is based on a number of factors, including a comparison of a country's military budget with its gross national product, and the percentage of the GDP spent on health care.

Of course, everybody wants to know where the U.S. fits into all of this.  According to Wiki, the U.S. comes in at #31.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_...

And 'way down near the bottom are countries like Mexico, Guatamala, Ghana, and Niger.   

The general feeling is that when a country becomes too heavily militarised, it is starting to slide downhill.  However, the Israelis might counter by saying that, since they live in a highly dangerous part of the world, they need all the protection they can get.  

    

   

Well, Iran was rated #32, which, theorhetically at least, puts it on the same military footing as the U.S.  And, as we all know, Israel considers Iran a very dangerous country.

But, then, Mongolia, Portugal, and Chile are rated about the same as the U.S. and Iran, so that kind of puts things into military perspective, as it were.

It seems based to a large extent on the percent of a country's resources it devotes to the military.

So prosperous countries, like the US, France, the UK, China- having a larger denominator, will naturally rank lower. 

Nov 14, 2012 -- 4:21PM, solfeggio wrote:

The Bonn International Centre for Conversion has released its Global Militarisation Index.  And Israel tops the list as the world's most militarised nation.  Israel has topped this list for most of the past twenty years.  But Israel's main regional rival, Iran, is far behind.

That's because Israel is the aggressor, the biggest bully, in the area.

Of course, everybody wants to know where the U.S. fits into all of this.  According to Wiki, the U.S. comes in at #31....

Which is deceiving. We spend more on our military than pretty much the rest of the world combined. Our best friend, Israel, is the most militarized, we have the largest military. Put the two together and that's trouble for the whole world.

You can't prepare for peace while arming for war.

Interesting, I can see Israel being where it is but the rest of the list is surprising.  I would not think the US to be on par with Portugal.  They must have a counter intuitive criterion they are using to make this list.  Anyway it is interesting.