"The 10 Biggest Military Reserves in the World" Topic

Well, if you are going to mobilize your Reserves Armies for a big wargame, take into account which wargamers can put more soldiers in the table.

"It's a volatile world that we live in. There are hot spots and flashpoints all over the globe where violence can break out in an instant. From the Demilitarized Zone separating the two Koreas, to the frequent face-offs between Asian powers in Kashmir; there's always somewhere on this planet where the wrong words spoken could be sufficient to spark a clash of arms. Because of this state of affairs, many countries wield large active militaries to deal with the expected or predictable situations. But what about unexpected powder-keg moments that could potentially scale upwards into total war?

In moments of invasion, all-out defense or global conflict, countries have to rely on their reserve militaries. For instance, the USA (which does not feature in this top 10) can count on several different reserve components including the Army Reserve, National Guard and Navy Reserve. Military reservists can continue their civilian lives whilst fulfilling an agreed amount of time in training and operations. The simple idea is, in a time of extreme crisis, these trained personnel can be called upon and mobilized to support active personnel (regulars).

Apart from one special exception, this list does not incorporate paramilitaries (armed organizations that are generally not part of the nation's official military) or active military. So, although Israel (with 445,000 reservists), Pakistan (with 515,000) and the USA (with 850,800 reserve troops) can call up massive support, the countries in the top 10 have reservist forces in their millions. Some countries rely on volunteers to fill their ranks, whereas others resort to conscription and civic duty. Figures on this list can obviously change with the current political climate, for example, Russia and Ukraine will be mobilizing their huge reserve forces due to the former's recent incursion into the Crimea. As for the latter, they have 1 million reservists to help out, but are pushed out of 10th place by the first entry on this list. The countries are ranked by numbers of active reserve military personnel…"

link

Took my attention that USA is not there. (?).

Amicalement
Armand

No bucks … no Buck Rogers … US Res Forces are probably "better" than some of those more numerous mentioned …

A couple of surprises but I guessed 1st place.

One thing to remember, the U.S. reserve forces, particularly the National Guard have more combat veterans than some of those countries regular forces.

Also, the US doesn't have a draft, nor count draftees as reserves for years after their primary service, so quality might have a quality of it's own, but the Pentagon decided to bet on quantity.

In a 'HOMEFRONT'-type scenario, also keep in mind that there will be a very large number of armed civilians in the US. There are over one million AR-15-type rifles in circulation, meaning hundreds of thousands of owners, in addition to everything else. Many of these owners will be combat veterans. Granted, this is the unorganized (or sometimes organized, it depends) militia, not the formal reserves.

As we saw when Iraq mobilized its reserves, all they did was provide more targets and large numbers of POWs. Giving someone an AK and a year or less of training does not make an infantryman. Oh and that applies to anyone who buys an AR-15 also. Buying an automatic rifle does not make you an infantryman either.

Well, we are not talking abour quiality.
It's quantity and those number are strikingly hight to me.
Also, agree with what our friend SouthernPhantom has said.

Amicalement
Armand

Numbers generally don't reflect quaility … it's when they do that you have to be concerned …

I honestly would not have guessed that DPRK was that high in the list.

The US should be counting all servicemembers that have not served 8 years active duty as part of the official reserves. I don't count, as I was medically discharged before I had 8 years service.

When you enlist in the US, you are enlisting for 8 years total. Usually 4 years active duty and 4 years reserve, but some folks only do the reserve thing for 8 years.

Even then, that's ~double the number of active duty personnel, so maybe 1.5mil total. And that's still not enough to make the top 10 as reported!