Free Republic

There's only one real way to compare military strength, and thankfully the world hasn't had many opportunities lately. Despite the potential powder keg in the South China Sea, standoffs in Ukraine, and proxy wars throughout the Middle East, inter-state warfare between the world's military powers has been all but banished from the global scene (for the time being, at least). For a simpler evaluation of military power, we turned to the Global Firepower Index, a ranking of 106 nations based on more than 50 factors including overall military budget, available manpower, and the amount of equipment each country has in...

Egypt's Defense Ministry has approved plans to expand the production of joint weapons and aerospace projects with Beijing. They said both countries were discussing a draft agreement in which they would also jointly market combat platforms and weapons to Arab and African militaries. "Over the next few months, we will witness an announcement of new Egyptian-Chinese combat production that stems from joint cooperation," said Hamdi Waheiba, chairman of Egypt's Arab Organization for Industrialization (AOI). Waheiba said the cooperative effort would seek to meet the needs of the Egyptian Air Force as well as regional militaries. The two countries plan to...