A new report posted on the Global Firepower (GFP) website, Malaysia has beaten out Singapore – a nation whose population is about a sixth of Malaysia’s – in terms of military strength.
The 2014 GFP ranking tallied the (non-nuclear) military capabilities of 106 countries, with each nation being assigned a rank and a Power Index (PwrIndx) score. Even without taking into account its massive nuclear arsenal, the United States military is still ranked first on the planet, with a PwrIndx of 0.228 (a lower value is better).
Malaysia ranks 38th in the world with a PwrIndx score of 1.3143, six places ahead of Singapore’s 44th place and 1.4699 PwrIndx score.
However, the Malaysian military is still deemed inferior to those of the Philippines (37th, 1.3042 PwrIndx), Thailand (24th, 0.9287 PwrIndx), Vietnam (23rd, 0.8962 PwrIndx), and Indonesia (19th, 0.8008 PwrIndx), placing it squarely in the lower half of Southeast Asia’s military power rankings.
