NationStates Jolt Archive

Woo! Tenth in the world for largest defense forces per capita.

You know, its never been clear to me which this ranking refers to: defense spending (which it mentions) or the size of the defense forces.

In any case, Santa Barbara is generally very "secure against foreign aggression" eh?

Another interesting thing to note is that out of the top 10 nationstates for defense spending, mine is the only one that doesn't have a 100% income tax rate.

Behold, the power of privatized military! The nation is supremely well protected and the people do NOT have to hand everything they have to the communistic government for that protection! Perfect security mixed with perfect economic freedom! Sounds like a sweet deal to me.

Do you sell ad space on your APCs?

Spaceships. They're more visible.

I find myself happy with 1,487th. in the world.

3772nd

248th in the world.

Don't care, roleplay it what matters.

Thanks to the completely f*cked up isues i am 118115th in the world for defense.
Arent we all happy?

40776 meh

arg, I'm in the mid 2000s. But still, I do believe my nation is secure against foreign invaders. And my income tax rate is zero. I think corporations are good because they do things for people.

20,901st. Meh, that's OK, I guess, not a completely militarized state, but any higher and it would probably start to drag on my economy, and that wouldn't be good either. I do have plans to use it in an upcoming RP, though :D

288th :)

I'm 88484th, but I don't really care that much because I focus more on social welfare, healthcare, education, etc.

Only got 625th. In the top 1%, so not too bad.

I think I'm about 115,000, and my income tax rate is 100%, and "even higher for the wealthy."

It's been a while since we had one of these...
You know, its never been clear to me which this ranking refers to: defense spending (which it mentions) or the size of the defense forces.
I don't really like this ranking because it's somewhat unclear. It's spending; the ranking says it refers to spending per capita-- pretty much, how much of each citizen's tax money goes to the military (So, one could also argue that it also depends on how high the tax rate is).

Because of this, a very large nation that's ranked low on the list will probably spend more and thus have a larger military than a very small nation ranked near the top.

Consider this: In a nation of 1,000 people, assume every single person pays 100 credits/dollars/rubles/pounds/cedis/dinari/whatever in taxes, and 30 percent (30 credits) goes to the military; the total military budget would be (30 * 1000) = 30,000 credits.

Now, take a nation of 500 people, where everybody pays the same amount in taxes (100 credits), but half of that money goes to the military (50 credits). The total budget would be 50 * 500, or 25,000 credits.

The smaller nation would be higher ranked because much more money (50 credits, 50%) from each person's taxes goes to the military, but the larger nation has the higher military budget and probably the larger army.

I hope all of that makes sense. :)

And, in other news, I was ranked ranked 3rd in the Sisgardia and 1,065th in the world for Largest Defense Forces (per capita). Gah.

--Felix

I'm glad to see nobody's posted yet; I forgot one key element:

The ranking is for DEFENSE forces, and my above post is mostly about offensive warfare. The smaller nation's 25,000 credits worth of military strength has far less territory and a much smaller population to defend than the larger nations 30,000 credits. If they were attacked by the larger nation, they would probably lose.

However, if a third, much stronger nation attacked both of them at once, the smaller nation would do better simply because its military has much less to defend.

So while this ranking works as a defensive rating, for an offensive military, one has to take those other things into account.

--Felix

It's been a while since we had one of these...

I don't really like this ranking because it's somewhat unclear. It's spending; the ranking says it refers to spending per capita-- pretty much, how much of each citizen's tax money goes to the military (So, one could also argue that it also depends on how high the tax rate is).

I would think its not percent of government spending per capita (which would, obviously, be much higher in 100% tax zones, so how could my 0% income tax NS compete?) but rather a total dollar value, per capita. That way we avoid the tax bit and just get to how much dollars wind up in the militarys hand.


Because of this, a very large nation that's ranked low on the list will probably spend more and thus have a larger military than a very small nation ranked near the top.

Yep. Its not just how much per capita, its how much... capita! Israel and I think.. Mali is it? outspend the US per capita but of course, have much fewer people.