The Military Balance 2011: The Annual Assessment of Global Military Capabilities and Defence Economics

摘要

The Military Balance has long been the standard annual reference work on its chosen topic, though the editors remind us that when first published 50 years ago, it extended only to 11 pages. It provides, they declare, "a comprehensive and independent assessment of the military capabilities and defence economics of 170 territories" (there are about 190 independent countries, but the missing ones are micro-states presumably without significant armed forces). New features this year are stated to be a section of tables of the most important statistics, and an increasing emphasis on qualitative rather than quantitative judgements (e.g. what proportion of weapons are out of date). The work is divided into seven geographical sections corresponding roughly to continents. For each there is an introductory descriptive essay, assessing recent developments (up to January 2011) in the defence policies and military capabilities of the most significant countries (which are not always the largest).