The list of the most powerful armies for 2023 published on the military website Global Firepower stunned readers this week when Iran and Egypt were ranked above Israel.
The critics also came out against the ranking of Russia in second place, despite the losses it suffered in the war in Ukraine.
As a result, we went to find out with the experts what the nature of the controversial rating is.
General (Ret.) Gershon HaCohen explains that military ranks have no real meaning on the battlefield since the usual parameters do not exist in war.
"You can see this today in the war between Russia and Ukraine. The Russian army is many times bigger and stronger on paper than the Ukrainian army. It has more tools in every parameter: planes, tanks, infantry, battleships. But in practice, we see that the Ukrainians cope well with the army The Russian".
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According to him, "the reason is that combat and the actual exercise of force is a much more complex issue, which cannot be quantified at all. In the same way, the Ministry of Finance in Israel claims that the IDF today has no state enemies but only terrorist organizations, and therefore the IDF needs less budget. But this is a mistake Because Israel is hindered, it cannot express its full power against the Palestinians. Therefore, it is not relevant to present Israel as Goliath in front of David, as a German article presented in the early 2000s."
"In the same way, it can be said that the Hezbollah organization is weak because it does not have an air force," continues Cohen, "but it has other strengths. That is, the whole matter of measuring power by the amount of weapons and soldiers is a mistake and it misses the whole essence of war and the vague rules that apply during combat In general, it can be stated that, as in the field of economics, it is very difficult to assess economic trends and the true economic power of countries. Likewise, in the military field, assessing the true strength of an army is a very deceptive field."
Ukrainian policemen shoot at a Russian armored personnel carrier, photo: Reuters
Major General Amos Gilad laughs in front of the ranking.
"For example, Indonesia is in the respectable 13th place, but has this army ever fought? Have we seen the cohesion of its fighters on the battlefield? Their morale? The quality of the fighters? It is very little wisdom to rank armies according to quantities, but this is not true. After all, Russia itself before the invasion of Ukraine was considered a very threatening army. And here, we see that a weaker but determined army can repel the Russian bear with less advanced weapons.
"In other words, the evaluation of an army is not only the actual weapons it has, but also the social cohesion, the morale of the fighters, their determination on the battlefield. These are indicators that cannot be measured simply. For example, Iran is ranked here before Israel, but this is a joke. The Iranians are weakening their army to in front of the Revolutionary Guards. That is, the Iranian army is deliberately inferior because of the conduct of the regime, so how can it be ranked high? Bottom line, there are ways to rank armies, but you need a long list of parameters that I don't think they took into account in this ranking."
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