According to the Global Firepower portal, the United States has maintained its leading position in the world in terms of military power, the Russian armed forces are second and third place went to China, RIA Novosti reports.
The top 10 also includes India, the United Kingdom, France, South Korea, Germany, Japan and Turkey.
The Azerbaijani Armed Forces, which took 64th place in the ranking, are recognized as the most powerful army in the South Caucasus. Armenia ranks 75th and Georgia is 74th on the list, 1news.az reports.
Azerbaijan has 314 tanks, 1590 infantry fighting vehicles (IFVs), 119 self-propelled guns (SPGs), 240 artillery units, 191 multiple launch rocket systems (MLRSs) and 127 aircraft, which is almost twice as much as the military power of Armenia, which has 166 tanks, 636 IFVs, 38 SPGs, 150 artillery units, 150 MLRSs and 63 aircraft. Georgia has 200 tanks, 1946 IFVs, 118 SPGs, 230 artillery units, 265 MLRSs and 67 aircraft.
The rating does not take into account the nuclear potential of states, or the level of political leadership and military command.
The Azerbaijani military expert Uzeir Jafarov said in an interview with a correspondent of Vestnik Kavkaza that "any ratings do not show the entire state of affairs which has developed in one country or another today."
Commenting on the 64th place of Azerbaijan, he suggested that "it is probably based on the latest data provided by countries to the UN." "It usually indicates the number of purchased weapons and equipment. As you know, Azerbaijan has purchased a very large number of weapons and equipment from various countries in recent years. Our lands are under occupation, and until the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict is resolved, Azerbaijan has to allocate a lot of money from the budget annually on defense and security needs," Jafarov explained.
"The rating names 70 thousand people as the number of Azerbaijani military forces. You know that every country has the right to have 1% of the total population. If we consider that the population of Azerbaijan is almost 10 million, I do not agree with the number of 66 thousand people," the expert said.
"As for Armenia, I will honestly say that you know that the economic situation in Armenia is much worse than in Azerbaijan and it receives all its weapons from Russia either for free or on a contract basis," Jafarov said.
Speaking of the military potential of Georgia, the expert expressed the opinion that it will soon surpass Armenia. "The Georgian armed forces are going to join the North-Atlantic Alliance, so they started to buy foreign weapons and equipment," he noted.
He also commented on the positions of other countries in the rating. "There are countries on the list that have made great strides in recent years. In general, these are countries that have to solve certain problems. The United States today is fighting international terrorism, Russia is involved in solving problems in Syria and so on," the expert concluded.
A military observer of the TASS news agency, retired Colonel Viktor Litovkin, in his turn, found this result of Azerbaijan unsurprising. "This is an indication that it has surpluses of weapons and military equipment. Indeed, Azerbaijan is a powerful military power today, but one needs a trained, professional staff in addition to arms and military equipment. I do not know how these criteria were considered when compiling the ranking. I cannot say anything bad about the Azerbaijani army, it really looks very solid today," he said.
"It would be nice if the Azerbaijani army didn't fight against anyone, like the armies of the other South Caucasus countries, and if it demonstrated its power in exercises and state parades. Therefore, we assume that these ratings are conditional. They are maybe fair according to some parameters, while according to others, this is about what the army can do and what it cannot do. So I would have treated them as a tool for reflection," Victor Litovkin summarized.
