Talk:List of countries by number of military and paramilitary personnel

Conflict with the Finnish Defence Forces Page
| The Page for the Finnish Defence Forces lists the amount of Reserve personnel at 900k, conflicting with this article. — Preceding unsigned comment added by NovaSM (talk • contribs) 11:01, 25 October 2021 (UTC)


 * I made a comment on it previously, which was removed. The definition on what is a reserve is the problem. Finland has a conscript based reserve army, not a professional army. In many countries the reserve is essntially a active reserve or 'weekend warrior' model, such as the US national guard. Finland's system is essentially made up of a active, wartime and reserve. The reserve being the total pool of trained soliders, while the wartime force would be made up of the active plus few hundred thousand from the reserve, not all the reserve. The figures for the US would be it's total wartime force, meaning their reserve, the national guard would be mobilized with very few left to draw from to replace losses. Thus, it's like comparing apples and oringes. Finlands reserve is actually close to 900,000. With the concept of a wartime figure totally missing in the article.Kennet.mattfolk (talk) 18:05, 11 May 2022 (UTC)
 * was coming here to say this too.
 * Finnish conscript webpage lists approximately 870,000 Finns belonging to the reserve. I believe it was updated to 870k from previous 900k this year. English page still lists it as 900,000 but I guess they didn't update it yet. Mega767 (talk) 15:13, 12 December 2022 (UTC)

Ukraine
On wiki page UKR army is wrote 255 000, but here in list is only 200 000 213.151.92.106 (talk) 12:48, 5 January 2022 (UTC)
 * The page Ukrainian Ground Forces currently shows a strength of 125,600. - w o lf  03:31, 23 August 2022 (UTC)
 * The page you mentioned is only ground forces. All kinds of forces: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armed_Forces_of_Ukraine Strelec A (talk) 11:30, 28 August 2022 (UTC)
 * You said, which is ground forces. Armed forces is the entire military. - w o lf  19:09, 28 August 2022 (UTC)

United States Paramilitary
This table list the u.s. paramilitary force as 0, by the plain text definition given at least all law enforcement officers would be considered paramilitary, and in the link provided explaining | paramilitary in more depth several specific examples of united states paramilitary are listed such as SWAT teams, CIA - Special Operations Group (SOG) and Global Response Staff, and Federal Protective Forces. A more accurate number of paramilitary in the U.S. is needed, or a clearer definition of what constitutes paramilitary. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.32.78.11 (talk) 14:19, 4 March 2022 (UTC)

map on Military personnel per capita
The numbers used for the map are not those published in the article. This is unfortunate.

The source on the map does not provide the year of the data.

It is not clear if military personnel as shown on the map includes paramilitary forces and reserves, or not.

The date in the article and for the map are in contradiction for France and Germany. France shows a lower ratio of military personnel per 1,000 inh. than Germany for total military personnel as for active personnel only, which is wrong. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ft (talk • contribs) 21:35, 18 November 2021 (UTC)

Tooth to Tail ratio
This is interesting, but is it worth a paragraph without having the numbers for each country? Humphrey Tribble (talk) 22:26, 6 March 2022 (UTC)
 * Perhaps. Do you have a source or sources for all the countries ratios? If so, why not add a column and see how it looks? - w o lf  03:34, 23 August 2022 (UTC)

Table doesn't work on mobile
On mobile there is no working function to order the table by different factors making it impossible to use 82.19.10.45 (talk) 10:12, 19 March 2022 (UTC)
 * Maybe post a report at WP:VP/T and see if you can get some assistance there. - w o lf  03:28, 23 August 2022 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 1 April 2022
Numbers in the personnel listing seems to come from an outdated version of the IISS Military Balance, suggesting updating to latest available 2021 figures for major countries: Country/Active/Reserve/Para USA/1388100/844950/0 Russia/900000/2000000/554000 China/2035000/510000/500000 India/1458500/1155000/2526950 Japan/247150/56000/14350 Taiwan/163000/1657000/11800 Vietnam/482000/5000000/40000 North Korea/1280000/600000/5889000 South Korea/599000/3100000/3013500 France/203250/41050/130800 Germany/183500/30050/0 Italy/165500/18300/175750 Spain/122850/14900/75800 Turkey/355200/378700/156800 UK/148500/78600/0 Brazil/366500/1340000/395000

Note: Para-military figure includes both active and reserve (same approach as original) Freedomv20 (talk) 18:00, 1 April 2022 (UTC)


 * Red information icon with gradient background.svg Not done: please provide reliable sources that support the change you want to be made. ★Ama   TALK   CONTRIBS  01:41, 6 May 2022 (UTC)
 * https://www.iiss.org/publications/the-military-balance/the-military-balance-2021
 * Page 517, Table 11. International comparisons of defence expenditure and military personnel Freedomv20 (talk) 17:00, 20 June 2022 (UTC)
 * @Amadeus1999@Thewolfchild
 * May I request one of you to process my edit request? This is taking awkwardly long.
 * Allow me to more formally restate where I'm coming from:
 * It seems clear the main content for this page is the "List by the International Institute for Strategic Studies" single sourced from the institution's annual Military Balance publication. It is then strange to see each country entry having its individual source coming from various editions of this publication (some entries are outright errors). The more sensible approach is apparently making a bulk update for all countries and cite a single source.
 * I happen to come cross the latest 2022 edition of the book and has extracted exactly this information into an excel file(also attached is a snip for the original book for reference). It would be lovely to see this properly updated.
 * References: IISS 2022, p. 522-527 Freedomv20 (talk) 22:00, 22 August 2022 (UTC)
 * Not sure why you pinged me (but you don't want to run afoul of WP:CANVASSING). Since has already responded, you should try to continue a dialogue with them and see if you can come to some kind of an agreement. -  w o lf  03:25, 23 August 2022 (UTC)
 * Thanks for that kind reminder, I mean no ill intentions and fully respect Amadeus1999's input on this. As you suggested I have left a message on his user talk page and will await his comments.
 * I am also curious to learn what is typically the community-accepted response time for this kind of procedure? I checked Edit requests and it mentions no specifics under "Response Time" aside from a vague "few days".
 * Given that I have shared my excel file on a non-permanent link that is single-use only (I wasn't aware of this yesterday when uploaded it on this service and foolishly expended the link by confirming it's downloadable) I sincerely hope for an expedited review or have someone with equal authority to cross check on the content to make sure I come in good faith (a good few hours of work to find the source text and the data extraction/cleaning).
 * Here are some additional "copies" of the file if there's interest.
 * https://file.io/r0wGrNPsC3AV
 * https://file.io/6zHkzXjUNI4q
 * https://file.io/paYPWzgysL4z Freedomv20 (talk) 18:11, 23 August 2022 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 8 June 2022
Request: Change Turkey's active military personnel from 355,200 to 425,000 and reserve personnel from 178,700 to 200,000.

Source: https://www.globalfirepower.com/country-military-strength-detail.php?country_id=turkey

The updates figures can also be found on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turkish_Armed_Forces. BiasReverter (talk) 01:31, 8 June 2022 (UTC)
 * ✅ - w o lf  03:23, 8 June 2022 (UTC)

Page should be fully protected
Table says "According to International Institute for Strategic Studies" (The Military Balance 2019-2021) but data are spoiled, mainly without reliable reference or without reference at all. Someone with access to The Military Balance should have authority to update the values. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Strelec A (talk • contribs) 11:08, 25 June 2022 (UTC)
 * this request should be posted at WP:RPP, but you will also need to include a valid reason. - w o lf  03:21, 23 August 2022 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 27 July 2022
Polish paramilitary 575400 is obviously a typo.

Change paramilitary=575400

to paramilitary=75400|

Sagavil (talk) 16:53, 27 July 2022 (UTC)
 * ✅ - w o lf  21:45, 27 July 2022 (UTC)

Does Brazil has actually a paramilitary force?
I mean, in Brazil, paramilitary associations are prohibited, according to the Federal Constitution of 1988. Unless we're talking about "militia groups" that are illegal by law... Unfortunately, i don't have access to the source we're talking about.

Federal Constitution of 1988 can be found here, on page 14; title II; section XVII:

"XVII – freedom of association for lawful purposes is fully guaranteed, any paramilitary association being forbidden;" Sailoratlantis (talk) 23:15, 24 September 2022 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 14 October 2022
Kindly also mention about Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic's Sahrawi People's Liberation Army in the "Not included in the list are the militaries of", section. 103.141.159.226 (talk) 19:07, 14 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Pictogram voting comment.svg Note: A barrier to this being completed timely is that editors must verify that the Sahrawi People's Liberation Army is in the The Military Balance, which requires 3-figure payment to see. — Sirdog (talk) 07:28, 29 October 2022 (UTC)
 * ✅ Aaron Liu (talk) 11:55, 2 November 2022 (UTC)

Missing countries
I noticed a list of countries, " Abkhazia, Andorra, Artsakh, Bhutan, Comoros, Eswatini, Maldives, Monaco, Northern Cyprus, Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic, Saint Kitts and Nevis, San Marino, São Tomé and Príncipe, Somaliland, South Ossetia, Tonga, Transnistria, Vanuatu, and Vatican City" are not included in the list. It states so under the list but does not explain why.

If nobody responds to this I will add them. NecromancerOfEnchanting (talk) 17:34, 12 October 2023 (UTC)

Math error in List by the International Institute for Strategic Studies
The figure for the US in the List by the International Institute for Strategic Studies is broken, it looks like it divided by 0 where it shouldn't have? I don't know how to edit correctly but I thought I'd bring it to the attention of people who can fix it. 92.6.129.8 (talk) 11:01, 18 February 2024 (UTC)

USA Error
> Expression error: Division by zero

Pls fix 2001:8E0:219D:C900:DDC6:74BE:68C1:9F93 (talk) 12:04, 18 February 2024 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 2 May 2024
Change the Finnish reserve size from 254,000 to 900,000. References: https://intti.fi/en/in-the-reserve https://www.newsweek.com/what-finland-adds-nato-military-arsenal-tanks-artillery-aircraft-russia-1792384 Enariz (talk) 16:30, 2 May 2024 (UTC)


 * Red information icon with gradient background.svg Not done: I don't think any other sources than the one being used by the table is accepted on the list, making the update impossible. ABG (Talk/Report any mistakes here) 10:05, 29 May 2024 (UTC)