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  • From: Lee Haslup <biglee AT haslups.com>
  • To: "Internetworkers: http://www.ibiblio.org/internetworkers/" <internetworkers AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [internetworkers] immediate reactions
  • Date: Sat, 02 Oct 2004 20:26:05 -0400

Curse you, David, for your post!! It has cost me hours and hours of time that I could have spent painting my garage door.
My problem, of course, is your table which was interesting but tantalizingly incomplete, or at least, made a point in which I wasn't that interested. Since you started with a list of the 100 largest armed forces in the world, your list has lots of zeros. I suppose that is your point -- that we are getting no help from China or Russia or India or Pakistan, etc. etc., but the thing is, I don't care. Most of those countries oppose any action by the US out of reflex. That the US proposes something is reason enough for them to oppose it -- any other rationale they might offer is after-the-fact and secondary.
It was, I'll admit, a bit of a disappointment about Germany and Turkey-- but not really a surprise. One could image the Russians joining in if Saddam hadn't owed them a ton of money and they weren't so strapped for cash. But for the rest of your zeros -- a coalition including all of them would starve before they could agree on what to have for lunch.
What is more interesting is to look at who IS in the coalition and what level of commitment they have made. I spent a silly amount of time tracking down some more-or-less reliable numbers (from nationmaster.com, www.globalsecurity.org and the CIA world fact book.) and I came up with the following:

Country Armed Forces In Iraq As % Per 100k (pop)
---------- ------------ ------- ---- --------------
US 1366000 170000 12.4 58
UK 212000 12000 5.7 20
Netherlands 52000 1400 2.7 9
Latvia 5000 122 2.5 5
Denmark 22000 496 2.3 9
Tonga 2000* 45 2.3* 41
El Salvador 17000 380 2.2 6
Mongolia 9000 180 2.0 6
Australia 51000 600 1.2 3
Poland 217000 2400 1.1 6
Estonia 5000 55 1.1 4
Italy 251000 2700 1.1 5
Lithuania 13000 105 0.81 3
Hungary 44000 300 0.69 3
Bulgaria 80000 485 0.61 6
Georgia 27000 159 0.59 3
Macedonia 5000* 28 0.56* 1
Ukraine 304000 1576 0.52 3
Korea 683000 2800 0.41 6
Romania 207000 700 0.34 3
Japan 237000 750 0.32 1
Portugal 45000 128 0.28 1
Slovakia 39000 105 0.27 2
Azerbaijan 72000 151 0.21 2
Czech Republic 58000 110 0.19 1
Thailand 301000 451 0.15 1
Albania 54000 70 0.13 2
Singapore 60000 33 0.055 1
Kazakhstan 64000 29 0.045 .2
Norway 27000 10 0.037 .2
Moldova 44000** 12 0.027** .3

* Armed Forces data not available -- I guessed a number.
** Based on 1 year service reqt. and number
of males coming of age each year.

This shows the current coalition, as well as I figure it. Some of the countries listed plan to pull their troops (mostly because they are coming up on the end of their commitment periods) but others have announced plans to send more so the overall troop levels is approximately a wash.

The forth column shows the percentage of the armed forces of the country that is committed to the coalition and the fifth shows the number of troops in Iraq or the theater for every 100000 population of the country. The list is ordered by the percentage of the armed forces committed but the troops by population column is interesting, too. It is that column that puts lie once and for all to the claim that the US is going it alone. The Tonganese are right in there with us, not to mention the Brits, the Dutch and the Danes.

In a parallel posting Jim Allman mentioned that there were no Islamic states in the list. Azerbaijan qualifies, actually, although they are pretty far down in the ranking.
BigLee

David Minton wrote:

On 10/2/04 10:04 AM, "Jim Allman" <jim AT ibang.com> wrote:


On Oct 1, 2004, at 5:46 PM, David Minton wrote:

From these numbers, looks like the US is doing it alone, despite Bush's
claims to the contrary.

Still, it's very un-cool to dismiss their help. I'll wager that a small
country with 100 people in Iraq is watching the situation (and our
reactions to it) closely.

Just showing up is an act of courage (physical and political), and I
hope Kerry can provide the "coalition reality-check" without dissing
them.


That is an interesting point. I made a table to put things in perspective,
based on the size of the standing military for each nation from this site:

http://www.nationmaster.com

Nation Total Troops in Iraq Coalition Rank
-------------------------------------------------------
1 China 2,810,000 0
2 Russia 1,520,000 0
3 United States 1,366,000 170,000 1
4 India 1,303,000 0
5 Korea, South 683,000 2,800 3
6 Pakistan 612,000 0
7 Turkey 610,000 0
8 Iran 513,000 0
9 Vietnam 484,000 0
10 Egypt 448,000 0
11 Ethiopia 352,000 0
12 Burma 344,000 0
13 Syria 316,000 0
14 Ukraine 304,000 1,576 6
15 Thailand 301,000 451 11
16 Indonesia 297,000 0
17 France 294,000 0
18 Brazil 288,000 0
19 Italy 251,000 2,700 4
20 Japan 237,000 750 7
21 Germany 221,000 0
22 Poland 217,000 2,400 5
23 United Kingdom 212,000 12,000 2
24 Romania 207,000 700 8
25 Saudi Arabia 202,000 0
...
45 Bulgaria 80,000 485 10
92 Denmark 22,000 496 9

After looking at these numbers, someone please convince me that Bush
assembled a true coalition. Looks more like the US, with help from UK. All
of the other contributions are merely window dressing.

Notice the major players not part of the coalition? Notice the percentage of
troops a number of the coalition members sent?

Or, compare the troops in the Iraqi Theater of Operations:

United States: 170,000 (approx)


United Kingdom: 12,000 (approx)
Remaining 36 members: 16,630 (approx)
------
28,630

Size of NYPD 39,110
<http://www.nyc.gov/html/nypd/html/misc/pdfaq2.html#41>

Bush could not get all of the nations of the world to contribute more troops
to keep the peace in Iraq than the size of the New York City Police
Department.

David







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