Largest Armies in the World

[George K]

Link to video

[Mik]

Fascinating! In the early 20th century Ethiopia had a larger army than we did. But boy, Russia sure hung in there for a long time.

[Doctor Phibes]

It's not the size of your army that counts, but where you try and put it.

[kluurs]

A couple of interesting things...

• In the 1880s, the US had a smaller military than places like Portugal. Even in the Spanish American War, we had less than 40,000 soldiers.

• In 1949 (yes, 1949), Japan had the largest army in the world as in 3x the size of the US Army.