List of countries by size of armed forces

This is a list of countries by number of military and paramilitary personnel. It includes any government-sponsored soldiers used to further the domestic and foreign policies of their respective government. The term "country" is used in its most common use, in the sense of state which exercises sovereignty or has limited recognition.

The list consists of columns which can be sorted by clicking on the appropriate title:

Many of the 171 countries listed here, especially those with the highest number of total soldiers, such as the two Koreas and Vietnam, include a large number of paramilitaries, civilians and policemen in their reserve personnel. Some countries, such as Italy and Japan, have only volunteers in their armed forces; while others, such as Mauritius and Panama, have no national armies, but only a paramilitary force.

The following list is sourced from the 2014 edition of "The Military Balance" published annually by the International Institute for Strategic Studies.

Not included in the list are the militaries of Abkhazia, Andorra, Bhutan, Northern Cyprus, Monaco, Nagorno-Karabakh, San Marino, Saint Kitts and Nevis, São Tomé and Príncipe, Somaliland, Swaziland, Tonga and Vanuatu.

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