According to analysts, the forces of only some countries can lay claim to being the most effective and capable armies of the world. The first place goes to the US army, the second one – Russia, and the third place of honor – China. Japan, India, France, South Korea, Italy, Great Britain and Turkey follow them in decreasing order. Canada closes the top twenty.

The ranking is based on figures of the military power index: the military strength, a number of armoured vehicles, aircrafts, helicopters, submarines, navy ships, and also the expenditure on defence. In this regard, the primacy of the American army occurs due to the high military budget of the country: last year the USA directed $610 billion to military buildup.

In that situation Russia and China benefits from the effectiveness of spending and investments in the first-rate armament. For example, in 2014 the Russian forces received about 4.5 thousand new weapons and military equipment, including the PAK FA (T-50) fifth-generation jet fighter, the Armata Universal Combat Platform, the new S-500 air defense system, capable of shooting down targets in near space.

China also invests in the first-rate armament. The country's army has the DF-21D ship-killing ballistic missiles, capable of engaging aircraft carrier out to 2,000 km, and also the DF-16 ballistic missiles with a range of 1,000 km, applied as a non-nuclear means of precision strikes. In addition, the regular army of the Celestial Empire is 2.3 million people against 1 million soldiers of the Russian army and 1.4 million in the United States.

As experts note, at the present time USA stopped developing the new types of weapons, concentrating on the production of armoured vehicles and drone aircrafts. Analysts regard the ships' vulnerability to the missile attack from land, the vulnerability of aircraft and satellites to the modern air defense assets as the weaknesses of the American military vehicles.

The top three – USA, Russia and China – is presented by analysts without taking into account the countries' nuclear weapons, as 90% of this type of weapons is concentrated in the hands os the United Stated and Russia.