Taiwan has the 13th most powerful military in the world, according to a report by the Credit Suisse Research Institute.
The US topped the global ranking with an overall score of 0.94, according to the report on the trend of globalization. It was followed by Russia (0.8), China (0.79), Japan (0.72), India (0.69), France (0.61), South Korea (0.52), Italy (0.52), Britain (0.5) and Turkey (0.47).
Pakistan was ranked No. 11 with a score of 0.41, followed by Egypt (0.34), Taiwan (0.32), Israel (0.32), Australia (0.3), Thailand (0.28), Poland (0.23), Germany (0.19), Indonesia (0.12) and Canada (0.1), the report showed.
To give a sense of how major military powers relate to each other, the institute created a weighted military strength index that identifies six key elements of modern warfare, in which only conventional war capabilities were considered: Active personnel, tanks, attack helicopters, aircraft, aircraft carriers and submarines.
The report listed the top 20 nations based on these elements of military strength.
“Our analysis reveals the military superiority of the United States in conventional war capabilities compared with its close rivals. Its fleet of 13,900 aircraft, 920 attack helicopters, 20 aircraft carriers and 72 submarines far outweighs the military might of any of its close rivals and so does its defense spending worth US$610 billion last year, which is far more than the combined military expenditures of the next nine countries in our index,” the report said.
However, the report said that conventional forces are not the only indicator of military strength.
“Russia and the United States account for more than 90 percent of global inventories of nuclear weapons according to data provided by Stockholm International Peace Research Institute’s Yearbook 2015,” it added.
Super Typhoon Kong-rey is the largest cyclone to impact Taiwan in 27 years, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said today. Kong-rey’s radius of maximum wind (RMW) — the distance between the center of a cyclone and its band of strongest winds — has expanded to 320km, CWA forecaster Chang Chun-yao (張竣堯) said. The last time a typhoon of comparable strength with an RMW larger than 300km made landfall in Taiwan was Typhoon Herb in 1996, he said. Herb made landfall between Keelung and Suao (蘇澳) in Yilan County with an RMW of 350km, Chang said. The weather station in Alishan (阿里山) recorded 1.09m of
NO WORK, CLASS: President William Lai urged people in the eastern, southern and northern parts of the country to be on alert, with Typhoon Kong-rey approaching Typhoon Kong-rey is expected to make landfall on Taiwan’s east coast today, with work and classes canceled nationwide. Packing gusts of nearly 300kph, the storm yesterday intensified into a typhoon and was expected to gain even more strength before hitting Taitung County, the US Navy’s Joint Typhoon Warning Center said. The storm is forecast to cross Taiwan’s south, enter the Taiwan Strait and head toward China, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. The CWA labeled the storm a “strong typhoon,” the most powerful on its scale. Up to 1.2m of rainfall was expected in mountainous areas of eastern Taiwan and destructive winds are likely
The Central Weather Administration (CWA) yesterday at 5:30pm issued a sea warning for Typhoon Kong-rey as the storm drew closer to the east coast. As of 8pm yesterday, the storm was 670km southeast of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻) and traveling northwest at 12kph to 16kph. It was packing maximum sustained winds of 162kph and gusts of up to 198kph, the CWA said. A land warning might be issued this morning for the storm, which is expected to have the strongest impact on Taiwan from tonight to early Friday morning, the agency said. Orchid Island (Lanyu, 蘭嶼) and Green Island (綠島) canceled classes and work
KONG-REY: A woman was killed in a vehicle hit by a tree, while 205 people were injured as the storm moved across the nation and entered the Taiwan Strait Typhoon Kong-rey slammed into Taiwan yesterday as one of the biggest storms to hit the nation in decades, whipping up 10m waves, triggering floods and claiming at least one life. Kong-rey made landfall in Taitung County’s Chenggong Township (成功) at 1:40pm, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. The typhoon — the first in Taiwan’s history to make landfall after mid-October — was moving north-northwest at 21kph when it hit land, CWA data showed. The fast-moving storm was packing maximum sustained winds of 184kph, with gusts of up to 227kph, CWA data showed. It was the same strength as Typhoon Gaemi, which was the most
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