The Military Balance 2025

Your definitive annual reference on global military capabilities

Overview
Published by the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), The Military Balance 2025 is an indispensable open-source assessment of defense forces, equipment inventories, and defence economics across more than 170 countries. This edition not only updates personnel numbers, budgets, and force deployments worldwide, but also incorporates timely analyses on evolving regional conflict dynamics and military-industrial trends. 

Key Features

• Comprehensive Data Coverage – Detailed country profiles covering land, air, naval, and strategic forces; personnel strength; procurement and modernization programs. 

• Defence Economics & Budgets – Comparative tables and analysis of defence spending, fiscal pressures, GDP ratios, inflation-adjusted costs.

• Regional & Issue-driven Insights – In-depth commentary on evolving fronts (e.g. Ukraine conflict, missile proliferation, defence industrial shifts). 

• Visual Aids & Wallchart – Rich graphics, maps, and a special wallchart (in this edition focused on China’s forces and PLA modernization) to aid visual comprehension. 

• Integration with Military Balance+ – Underlying data draws from and syncs with the IISS’s online database (Military Balance+), enabling dynamic query, comparison, and export options.

Why It Matters

In a world marked by shifting security challenges and heightened great-power competition, The Military Balance 2025 offers clarity where noise abounds. It is trusted by:

• Policymakers and defence institutions

• Intelligence and strategic analysis firms

• Academics, researchers, and think tanks

• Media covering security and strategic affairs

Whether you’re benchmarking force modernization, assessing capability gaps, or studying procurement trends, this publication equips you with authoritative, up-to-date data and expert interpretation.