Economy, Militaries, and Invasions - More things to know

[Clan Smoke Jaguar]

ECONOMY
Now, economy, or more rather, GDP, is something that is not very well understood, and the host of woefully inaccurate calculators and guidelines are proof of that. For example, one of the methods (and actually one of the better ones, I’m afraid to say), produces results by dividing the GDPs of 225 nations into 15 even groups, and then averaging them. This is an idea of the result of that, with the numbers in parenthesis being the actual range of GDPs in the area.

Frightening: $31,500 ($27,500.78 - $44,500)
All-Consuming: $25,000 ($20,500 - $27,000)
Powerhouse: $19,000 ($17,500 - $20,500)
Thriving: $15,000 ($11,000 - $17,500)
Very Strong: $10,000 ($9000 - $11,000)
Strong: $8000 ($7500 - $9000)
Good: $6000 ($5500 - $7000)
Fair: $4500 ($4500 - $5000)
Reasonable: $4000 ($3500 - $4500)
Developing: $3000 ($2500 - $3500)
Struggling: $2000 ($2000 - $2500)
Weak: $1500 ($1500 - $2000)
Fragile: $1200 ($1000 - $1500)
Basket Case: $900 ($800 - $1000)
Imploded: $600 ($400 - $800)

This doesn’t look half bad, but there are several key pieces of information that were ignored. First and foremost is the question of the higher end GDPs. You’ll note that they have very large ranges, and the highest GDP in the world is over 40% above the average for Frightening, meaning that, while completely feasible, it will be pretty much discounted by this ladder. Another thing it fails to take into account is disposition. Simply speaking, the higher the GDP, the fewer nations will have it. This is plainly evident when you actually look at them all together, and you’ll see that fully two fifths (40%) of the nations in the world are below $3500 GDP per capita, while less than 15% are above $20,000. Clearly, this arbitrary method of ranking does little more than cater to nations with weaker economies by bringing down those with better ones. Similarly, ladders that use the US as the basis, making it All-Consuming or Frightening will suffer a similar problem. They still forget that the US isn’t the best, and I’d hardly think of it, or any other nation as having a Frightening economy. Thriving or Powerhouse maybe, but not better than that.

On the other hand, I have a slightly better fit, which does take into account the fact that, the higher you go, the less nations will be there. It should be noted that I put Frightening above any nation on Earth. Simply put, I find it hard to consider any nation on Earth to have what a Frightening economy is supposed to be, especially when you consider that nations like the US inhibit themselves greatly with policies, certain laws, and excess spending. Now, admittedly, this ladder itself is a bit rough and has some flaws of its own, particularly as we get lower, but it does fit things a little better than most, and I accept it. I’m also providing examples of countries that fall in the various categories, for reference purposes.

Frigtening: $50,000 ($47,500+)
None

All-Consuming: $45,000 ($42,501-$47,500)
Luxembourg

Powerhouse: $40,000 ($37,501-$42,500)
None

Thriving: $35,000 ($32,501-$37,500)
USA, Bermuda, Cayman Islands

Very Strong: $30,000 ($27,501-$32,500)
Switzerland, Norway, Belgium, Denmark, Canada, Ireland, Japan, Austria

Strong: $25,000 ($22,501-$27,500)
Australia, Netherlands, Finland, Germany, France, Sweden, Italy, UK, Singapore

Good: $20,000 ($17,501-$22,500)
Liechtenstein, UAE, Spain, Qatar, Israel, New Zealand, South Korea, Greece, Portugal

Fair: $14,250 ($11,001-$17,500)
Taiwan, Czech Republic, Kuwait, Hungary, Bahrain, Slovakia, Netherlands

Reasonable: $9500 ($8001-$11,000)
Estonia, Argentina, Saudi Arabia, Chile, Poland, South Africa, Uruguay, Mexico, Croatia, Malaysia, Russia, Latvia, Costa Rica, Belarus, Lithuania

Developing: $6750 ($5501-$8000)
Oman, Botswana, Brazil, Libya, Turkey, Iran, Romania, Bulgaria, Thailand, Tunisia, Columbia, Venezuela, Panama, Kazakhstan

Struggling: $4500 ($3501-$5500)
Grenada, Peru, China, El Salvador, Paraguay, Namibia, Jordan, Ukraine, Philippines, Albania, Egypt, Guatemala, Morocco

Weak: $2750 ($2001-$3500)
Sri Lanka, Syria, Belize, Indonesia, Ecuador, Honduras, India, Bolivia, Zimbabwe, Iraq, Nicaragua, Uzbekistan, Cuba, Vietnam, Pakistan

Fragile: $1625 ($1251-$2000)
Bosnia & Herzegovina, Mongolia, Bangladesh, Solomon Islands, Laos, Burma, Cape Verde, Cambodia, Nepal, Sudan, Angola

Basket Case: $1075 ($901-$1250)
Uganda, Kenya, North Korea, Chad, Rwanda

Imploded: $650 ($400-$900)
Mozambique, Zambia, Madagascar, Nigeria, Niger, Afghanistan, Ethiopia, Somalia

Do remember that the number given is the median for that group, and is there for the quicker calculations. For those that wish to have a fictional GDP, the numbers in parenthesis show the actual range you can be in. When generating a fictional GDP, please remember to keep into account pertinent things like how long you’ve had that economy, whether or not you’re making decisions that would improve or lower it, and whether you went up or down from the previous level. For example, if you just got up to a Frightening economy, you still won’t be up to $50,000 yet, and should be closer to the $47,500. However, it you’ve had a Frightening economy for months (RL), and you’ve been making decisions that would increase it still further, you could possibly get up to $55,000, though I wouldn’t advise going too far above that, as you might start getting complaints, even from me. :P

Now do note that large armies and high military spending will have an adverse effect on your economy. If you have over, say, 2% of your population in your military, you will have to RP an economy a rank or two below where the game says you are. Similarly, you will have to do the same thing if you claim an extreme military spending, like over 8-10% of your GDP (consider that the top three military spenders have Basket Case, Fragile, and Imploded economies). Naturally, these are cumulative, so if you have over 2% military and 10%+ spending, you will suffer a drop of at least 2-5 ranks. Naturally, the greater difference in ranks means that those on the higher end will drop fewer ranks, while those with lower economies will drop further. That is because there’s a greater difference between ranks higher up, so the same drop in GDP takes less of a level drop to show. For those who like number crunching,
This means that if you want something utterly extreme like North Korea, you will need something like a Good or Strong economy, and you will have to RP a Basket Case or Imploded one to show the effects. You will also run your country into the ground after a rather short period of time, and if you disband that huge army and focus on getting your economy back on track, it will take you weeks, if not months (RL), to get back up to where you should be. North Korea’s economy is so far gone that it will take decades of reform to get them up to where they could have been.
For those of you who like to be number crunchers, I would suggest maybe a drop of 10-20% of your possible economy if you go slightly over the listed limits. A North Korea would expect a 90-95% drop (yes, that’s how bad it is for them). As you might be able to see, that can seriously cut into your nation's coffers if you're not careful.
Conversely, if you maintain a very small military, say less than 0.5% of your population, including reserves and National Guard/Militia, backed up with marginal military spending (well under 1% of GDP), you should be able to RP an economy better than what the game says you have, though this would be only a level or two max (or a 10-20% increase, max).


NOW, FOR ARMY SIZE:
The size and composition of armies is one of the most misunderstood, yet most widely used aspects of Nationstates. This is not helped by the fact that a number of well-meaning individuals have, in previous stickies, noted that you could maintain up to 5% of your nation in your military. This is not true. While you can have 5% of your population in the military, this is only really acceptable in times of war. Outside of that, it should be much smaller. In fact, you can count the number of nations with better than 2% of their population in their military on one hand, and at least one of those is a nation that just came out of a major war. Of the others, only one (North Korea) does not face the immediate threat of hostile action by militaristic neighbors. Do note, however, that most statistics only cover active armed forces, and reserve and militia (aka Territorial Defense, Border Guard, National Guard, etc) are not included. However, most of the nations with prohibitively large armies don’t quite have the reserve and militia strength of the larger modern nations, so the number gives a good idea of the combat power. Another thing to note is that the vast majority of nations with proportionately large armies are ones with low populations, often under 10 million, and these nations have larger neighbors that threaten them, thus necessitating such measures. Larger nations do not need such big armies because they have the population base to recruit a respectable army without taking too much.
Now, I’d give some good info on reserves and militia, but that’s not easy to dig up on most nations, and as stated, those that have large active forces tend to be a bit light on the militia and reserves. However, I do have some good info on the USSR, the US, and China, from just after the end of the Cold War. The numbers can be seen here.

Soviet Union in 1992:
Population: 285 million
Active Military: 2.804 million (0.984%)
Reserve Military: 4.315 million (1.514%)
Total: 7.115 million (2.509%)

USA in 1992:
Population: 253 million
Active Military: 2.052 million (0.811%)
Reserve Military: 1.28 million (0.506%)
National Guard: 0.617 million (0.244%)
Civilian Employees: 0.865 million (0.342%)
Total: 4.804 million (1.899%), 3.939 million (1.557%) w/o civs

China in 1992
Population: 1144 million
Active Military: 3 million (0.262%)
Reserve Military: 1 million (0.087%)
Militia: 10 million (0.874%)
Total: 14 million (1.224%)

As you can see, even the nations with the largest militaries had little more than 1-2.5% of their population in the total military. Even at its peak, the active force was less than 1%. Also, that 2.5% total military was enough to run the USSR into the ground, though that owes more than a little bit to poor management and leadership. Still, a clear trend exists, and that is that the militaries of larger nations, and those of nations that have more modern ones, tend to be smaller, while those of poor-under developed nations tend to be bigger. But remember, those bigger armies have less training and poorer equipment, and will be decimated by the smaller forces in open battle.

Another thing that many fail to take into consideration is the military spending per soldier. What I’m referring to is the amount spent, on average, per (active) soldier. Simply put, divide the military budget by the number of active soldiers, and you’ll have a figure to compare. It’s even better when you do this for the total military, but that’s harder to come by for RL nations. Naturally, the higher the number is, the better trained and equipped troops will tend to be. To put it into perspective, most nations will spend about $3000-$5000 per soldier, especially those with large armies. Some really poor nations can be incredibly low, and some nations will spend less than $500 per solder. An army at $20,000 per soldier might be well trained, well equipped, or moderately trained and equipped, and a decent modern army shouldn’t be less than $45-55,000 per solder. The truly advanced western nations go even further, and often have better than $100,000 per soldier, with the US topping the charts at just over $200,000, and the UK coming in second at $150,000. Now remember once again that these are the numbers that come from dividing the total military budget by the number of personnel in the active force. Massive reserves will mean that you’ll need much more to get the same level of training.


To put it all together, I suggest you take a look at my own nation. Do note that the stats here are not the current ones, but those that I plan to have after the war I’m in (assuming it ever gets resolved ).
Population: 3,423,589,118
Active Military: 15 million (0.44%)
Reserve Military: 15 million (0.44%)
Militia Corps: 15 million (0.44%)
Total: 45 million (1.31%)
GDP Per Capita: $49,472.54
GDP: $169,373,649,583,819.72 ($169+ trillion)
Budget: $12 trillion (7.1%)
Budget Per Active Soldier: $800,000 (!)
Budget Per Total Soldier: $266,666.67
Now, compared to the US, I have about 10 times the military they had in 1992. This isn’t exactly odd, as I’m still 13.5 times as big to begin with (and with a higher economy to boot). In addition, you can see that less than 40% of my forces are active, with the rest being reserve and militia. For the US, it’s the other way around, which explains the huge discrepancy between my spending for active troops and that of the US. However, when you factor in the total forces, I’m still at nearly two times the spending, per soldier as the US is currently. This means that I can afford to have my troops exceptionally well trained and equipped. The final note is that I actually have two three billion-plus nations that not only share a land-border with me, but wouldn’t mind invading if they thought they’d win, so there’s also a reason for a big army. Finally, my GDP has taken a slight dip because of previous overspending, and my people still live a lifestyle more in tune with a Powerhouse or low-end All-Consuming economy due to government spending.

One final note: when I list army size, I'm including all military personnel (and in some cases, civilian workers as well). The actual combat forces will be only a fraction of the total force.


INVASIONS
Another thing that many people like to do, but few truly understand, is invading other nations. When doing this, there are a lot of things to consider. First and foremost, an invasion force will have its size capped by one of two things: Either the limit of the supply line, or the number of troops that can be called away without risking the launching nation’s own security. In general, militia forces only act as home defense, while active and called up reserves would go into combat (with preference for active formations). You would also have some front line forces left behind to defend your nation as well. The number and composition of the forces left behind is based on the potential threats, so you will leave more if there’s a hostile nation bordering you, and less if you’re completely surrounded by friendly nations.
The other one, and usually the more important of the two, is the supply line. This is critical in any campaign, and especially so in an amphibious invasion. You cannot send in more forces than you could realistically supply, and the number to troops sent in initially will usually be rather small, with the larger forces waiting until critical supply junctions are taken before joining in.

Now, there are two different categories of invasion to consider. The first, and easiest, is a ground invasion coming over a shared border. Limits on manpower are far less than they would otherwise be. Supplies, however, are still critical, and the most efficient method for moving supplies over land is via rail. Trains can carry more supplies faster and more cheaply than any other form of ground transportation, but their movement is limited by available track, the ideal target for a ground invasion would be one with an extensive rail system, and key objectives in the invasion would be major rail junctions, train stations, and railway bridges. Without these, you’ll have to rely on trucks to carry supplies, and that is both more expensive and less efficient (a truck convoy needs a lot of fuel to move very far, whereas a train can move the same supplies with only a fraction of the fuel costs). For nations that don’t have an extensive rail system, or worse, none at all, you will have to rely on trucks to get supplies there. As stated this is more expensive and will use up more of your supplies just getting the trucks there. As such, the force limits on an invasion of such a country are far more significant, and the rate of advance will have to be much slower.
The other type of invasion is an amphibious one, and is more popular due to so many nations claiming to be islands, but is far more limited. Amphibious invasions are limited by three types of supply problems. The first is naturally the size of the naval amphibious force that can be organized. You just can’t deliver more troops and equipment than you have ships to carry. Now, amphibious vessels all have “landing” in their designation, with the first letter in their abbreviations being L. These ships include LHDs, LHAs, LPHs, LPDs, LSDs, LSTs, and smaller craft that have long range like LCUs. In addition to the amphibious force limitation, you are also limited by the composition of your assault craft fleet. With the exception of LSTs and LCUs, all the ship types listed here are incapable of breaching (running up to shore and offloading cargo directly). Thus, they need to use smaller landing craft such as LCUs, LCMs, LCACs, etc, or helicopters, which will take their troops and equipment ashore. Naturally, there are very real limits, and only a fraction of the total force can be deployed in each wave. You also must take into account that the number of assault craft is everything you got. You can’t have a larger landing force than the assault craft and helicopters available can supply, meaning it won’t be that big. Also, if you use them all for the first wave, it will take hours, possibly even a full day with some, before they can return with more troops or supplies. The supply situation for a landing force is also critical, and poses another major limitation. Again, there must be a significant force dedicated to sending supplies ashore, and these will usually be taken from the landing craft that are there. Landing forces are also generally lighter than many others, as they must be transported and supplied by small craft and helicopters. You will also find that the supplies you have for backing up the amphibious attack are quite limited, with not much more than the stocks on the landing ships to go on, so the absolute first priority of an amphibious invasion is to take a deepwater port. You will have to make up for the small numbers by generating local superiority, which is perfectly achievable, though any invasion that does run into a superior enemy force before taking a port, is screwed. Once the port is taken, large cargo ships can come and offload hordes of heavy equipment and supplies, and you will have the forces needed to push inland. However, you might want to try and get more ports, as the more you have, the better your supply situation will be. It should also be noted that you must pay heed to the available cargo fleet. Consider that it takes 4-5 50,000 ton multiproduct ships to supply 16,000 marines for 30 days. If you have a million man force, you will be using up the supplies from two of these vessels every day. Now consider that it takes a long time (sometimes days) to load and unload them, and the fact that they have to travel back to their homeport (and back again) before delivering supplies, so to have that kind of thing going, you’d need well over 60 of these ships just to support that force, and you have to remember that marines are light troops. Heavy ones like armored or mechanized infantry units will require even more supplies. And remember, those 50,000 ton ships need a port, so don’t think you can land a multi-million man (or even 1 million in most nations) invasion force and supply it without a seaport.
Naturally, the best method for stopping both types of invasion is to cut the enemy’s supply line. Sink those supply ships, blow trains and the bridges and tunnels they need to go through, destroy truck convoys, etc. Do that successfully, and you will just have to wait for your enemy to run out of supplies. Then he can either die uselessly or surrender. Either way, you win.

Now one of he biggest misunderstandings with amphibious landings, and the one that makes people think they can use larger invasion forces than they really can, is the Normandy invasion. That was not a normal invasion, and many of the rules can be waived due to the special circumstances. Most notably, there was the proximity of the launching ports to the beaches being hit. This was such that ships could even manage multiple trips in a day. In most NS invasions, your ships will need one or two months before they can come back with a second load. This means that the number of troops deployed at Normandy can’t be done in a normal invasion by similar-sized nations, and the supply situation will be much worse. A normal amphibious invasion shouldn’t be more than a few hundred thousand, even with the largest nations out there.




OTHER THREADS IN THIS SERIES
Some Things You Should Know About Aircraft: Information on aircraft design and performance, including engines and stealth features.

Some Info on Naval Vessels: Information on design and classification, of naval ships, including speed and armament.

Some Things You Should Know About Tanks: Gives tips on design and performance for AFVs, including armor and weapons.

[New Genoa]

Superb. Although, I do not have a militia force... hmmm...

[New Genoa]

Superb. Although, I do not have a militia force... hmmm...

Very nice post. Very handy to, i'll keep it in mind.

[Walmington on Sea]

I like the new take on economic ratings. At last someone notices that the US doesn't have close to the highest per capita GDP on earth.. and that no one gets by with US$100 a year.

The money-per-serviceman thing is interesting, too.

Of course it's all of questionable significance to 1940s-based Walmington, but still, it's nice to know that my insane driving-its-economy-into-the-dirt militarist state spends more on each recruit than does the US. Em, for the next few months, at least.

[The Evil Overlord]

Very nice.

This incorporates a lot of things I already do, with enough new ideas to think about.

I've always taken the GDP calculators with many grains of salt, and double-check my numbers with my own personal budget caluclations (by my methods, your military budget is too high, but that's just my opinion).

The only time I'm aware of that a military force has successfully pushed across an ocean to stage an amphibious landing was Operation Torch- the Allied invasion of French North Africa in WW II. That was a total balls-up from the word "go", and only Rommel's supply situation prevented the Germans from crushing the American forces- even then, the Germans handed the US Army its ass on a plate at Kasserine.

Long-range apmphibious assaults are extremely difficult. Note that the US hasn't used its amphibious punch much. For one thing, not all shorelines are vulnerable to this sort of attack. For another, the logistical problems you mentioned make it a nightmare for the invader and a 'target-rich environment' for the invadee.

TEO

[Santa Barbara]

I believe the military budget per capita is per capita of civilian population, not military. For example, the US with a military budget per capita of $958, or Somalia with $2. That is, for every citizen they spend that much on the military.

And on that note, I should like to say that the two highest defense-per-capita rankings I found were Israel ($1400 or so) and the US, and neither of these countries economies is anything to sneer at.

[Omz222]

Another excellent post, CSJ. Glad that someone mentioned examples for supply demands for large invading forces. A few things for people:

1) Your 2 million invasion force will not work unless your supply line is umharmed, and it can keep up the supply demand. Of course, 2 million soldiers need a lot of ammunition, food, etc. every day especially when they fight (they fight=they require). This is especially true if your enemies are still sorrunding you and you want to get rid of them. Just one harmed supply lines or a few tons less of grains can result in great ineffiecency of your forces, or even cause surrunder quickly. take the German invasion of the Soviet Uniond for example. There were tens of thosands of combatents in the Sixth Army. At that time, the German Luftwaffe was the only solution of deliving supplies through air. But guess what? even with a >1 million force, the Luftwaffe was barely capable of even deliver 50% of the required only for a short time, and them they are nto able to deliver any at all. Added with the fact that the German Army is not suited for winter fighting under extreme temperatures (mentioned in part 2 of my post), the Germans were simply easily pushed out of Stalingrad, since most were frozen/starved to death, or simply didn't have a capability of even fire a machine gun without vertain "aids".

2) Weather conditions. A lot of people think that their armies could fight anytime, anywhere. Guess what? Not true. An army that was trained, fitted, and supplied for jungle fighting will not survive a fighting in minus 40 Celsuis (sp.) degrees. It would be plain godmodding/poor RPing to have an army fitted and supplied for desert combat to be able to fight in intense battles under a freezing -20 degrees at all.

About the budget, since I favor more of a smaller military (which would be well trained/equipped/affordable) with a good economy and space for other budget spendings, I normally use 8% of my budget for military (4.54% under the pipian.com GDP calculator). Also taken into account for an army is labor force. As CSJ said, a huge army would certainly hurt the economy at the North Korea example. Especially active forces which stays at military base full time. But why? A part of course, is labor force. More people in the military, less people avaialble to actually run the economy.

Another note on amphibious landing: you cannnot land 100,000 troops by amphibious assualt without striking the enemy's defense first. Even if you have a huge escort, it would end with some amphibious ships sank with about 10,000 soldiers or more.

[Daistallia]

Very nice.

How did you find all this stuff out because I would like to know.

[Omz222]

How did you find all this stuff out because I would like to know.

R-e-s-e-a-r-c-h :P

[Clan Smoke Jaguar]

I believe the military budget per capita is per capita of civilian population, not military. For example, the US with a military budget per capita of $958, or Somalia with $2. That is, for every citizen they spend that much on the military.

And on that note, I should like to say that the two highest defense-per-capita rankings I found were Israel ($1400 or so) and the US, and neither of these countries economies is anything to sneer at.

Ach, you're right, just a typo.
Though technically, you could use the term for both.

[Lapse]

*tag*

thats pretty good,

[Glorious Humanity]

After reading this topic, I got a figure for 1% of my population. I found that that's 3,850,000 people in the military. Just 1%.

What the heck would I do with all those people? Glorious Humanity is a mostly peaceful nation, we're surrounded by friendly nations, and we've never invaded anyone. When Glorious Humanity's military does get involved in international incidents, it's almost always in a peacekeeping role, and usually as part of a coalition of allies. Granted my military does act as police at home in some circumstances, but with a fully functional civilian police force having 3 million soldiers playing cop doesn't seem reasonable or logical.

I put this up because I've seen several nations that claim to be basically peaceful that maintain (or claim to maintain) militaries of 5-10% of their population. Supply and economic issues aside, there's the logic issue of big armies: if you're basically peaceful, and have no hostile nations near you, whaddaya need all the soldiers for?

[Kanabia]

excellent post.

These are the stats i have come up with for my basket case economy country with 7 million pop.

Military Size- 1.5% of population, or 105000 men, with half of these on active duty.
An additional 150000 men can be raised during wartime as conscripts (yes, it exceeds the acceptable limit, but consider the military status of many nations during WW2 for example, i dont think my fiercely patriotic people would sit idly by as a foreign power tramps through their lands, and in such a situation, the economy would be second priority.)

Navy: 8000 active men; including 6000 logistics and other non-coms.
Airforce: 12000 active men; including 8000 logistics and other non-coms.
Army: 30500 active men; including 10000 logistics and other non-combat personell, (ground forces should need less support personnel than air and naval forces, especially in a third world country like Kanabia.)
Total GNP: 6.3 Billion USD
Total Government Revenue: 4.47 Billion USD

Now assuming 12% of the budget goes towards the military, that leaves the military budget at $536 million. If this seems unrealistic, in 1991, Angola, with a population of ~9 million and a GNP of 5.7 billion, spent $600 million on its military. And Angola isnt really anything out of the ordinary in this regard among third world nations.

Given this budget, i would think that the equipment used by the military would be as follows:
Navy- Osa I and II ocean patrol boats, and smaller river patrol craft.
Air Force- MiG-19 and MiG-21 fighters, possibly Q-5 Fantan attack aircraft.
Army- Small number of T-55 tanks, BRDM-1 and 2 recon vehicles, and BMP-1 APCs.

I think thats fair. What do you guys think?

On a side note, i'd like to recommend the early 90's PC games "Shadow President" and "Crisis in the Kremlin" which are excellent political simulators, that can be found as abandonware at www.the-underdogs.org
Also check out "Hidden Agenda" another excellent one with a South American flavor. Anyone who likes this Nationstates game should like these too