Nato has published the latest military personnel figures for each of its member nations.
But how does the UK stack up compared to its NATO allies?
With NATO estimating Britain’s personnel numbers for 2020 at around 156,200, the UK has seen an increase in serving personnel compared to the previous year’s figure of 144,400. However, despite the increase of more than 10,000, the UK does not feature in the top five countries, according to the latest statistics.
The United States leads the way, with 1,346,000 servicemen and women, followed by Turkey (437,200), France (208,000), Germany (186,900) and Italy (175,500).
Of the countries with a larger estimated military, only Turkey and Italy have seen their numbers of Armed Forces personnel shrink.
NATO’s estimates for UK personnel are similar to the latest British Government data, which records the total strength of full-time trained and untrained UK Armed Forces at about 156,600. 56% of that number within the British Army and the rest split equally between the Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force.
The US, Germany and France have all seen the size of their military grow. It comes after NATO figures put the UK fourth in the list of defence expenditure among the alliance’s members, with a spend of 2.32% – above NATO’s target 2% of a country’s gross domestic product (GDP). Läs artikel