VULNERABILITY
AND CENTRAL ASIAN DEVELOPMENT

Country

Numbers Armed Forces
1996 (1,000s)

Para-
military
(1,000s)

Gross
National
Capabilities

Deflated
for Distance

Without
U. S. or Eur.

     Russia

1,270

352

12

12

30.6

     Kazakh

40

34.5

0.7

0.7

1.8

     Kyrgyz

7

7

---

---

---

     Tajik

7*

16.5

---

---

---

     Turkmen

18

n. a.

---

---

---

     Uzbek

30

16

0.3

0.3

1

     China

2,935

1,200

27.2

27.2

53.2

     Iran

513

350

2.4

2.4

4.8

     Turkey

525

182.2

2.4

2.4

6.5

     Afghan

429

----

0.9

0.9

1.4

     Europe
(--Ger & Tky)

1552.5

509.9

18.5

15.1

     Germany

358.8

25.1

6.4

4.6

     U. S.

1,483

88

26.5

18.3

Sources: World Balance of Military Power 1997-1998, International Institute for Strategic Studies, (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997).*(+16.5 Russian border guards+12 mostly Russian CIS troops). For sources of Gross National Capabilities, please see Appendix H. National Capabilities based upon The Correlates of War data set. For each dimension the share of the system total is computed in percentage and the three dimensions are added and averaged. The statistics for each dimension are compiled in an appendix as specified: Military--number of personnel and military expenditure; Industrial--production of ingot steel and industrial fuel consumption; Demographic--total population and urban population. Bueno de Mesquita's distance deflation formula posits no diminution up to 2.71 days of mobilization time, but more steeply at greater than ten days. Therefore, only Eur., Germany, and the U. S. capabilities are deflated.
Observe that using this method yields an artificially high capability to China and improperly diminishes the significance of the Central Asian states to each other.

MILITARY SIZE COMPARISON