Post by South Malaysia on Feb 5, 2006 3:35:44 GMT -5
QUOTE ("Seocc")
Why High % Armies are Quite Unrealistic
There are a lot of nations which claim to have ungodly percentages of their population in their military (ranging from the 20% IF and NRBC claim, to the more reasonable 2.5-4% i saw when i first got here). At first, we want to say, yes, militaristic regimes can in fact dragoon this many troops into service, especially if they have compulsory military service and big defense spending. I agree, nations like that can in fact raise large % militaries, but for numerous economic reasons, most of the %'s used are in fact insanely self destructive.
Let's use the US as a case study, not for their military, but because information on their census is very readily availabe. Circa 2000 the census put the US population around 250 M, with ~108 M of those people between the ages of 18 and 44. Now, to be realistic, most nations are not going to have women serving in the same capacity as men (i'm not saying it's right, just that realistically, that's how it is). So your pool for troops is more than half of 108 M, let's say 70 M to represent women in support roles, whatever. Coincidentally, 18 to 44 is also the primary demographic for the labor pool; after 44 non professionals tend to get pushed out in favor of younger workers who can be paid less, work more and not put in for viagra perscriptions under the company health plan. So every soldier you take means you are losing workers.
If you doubt the power of military service to greviously affect the labor pool, look at the US during WWII; it as widely accepted that the need for women to work, replacing the men who left for Europe and Asia, forced owners to accept women into the workforce. What % of the workforce did they make up, if they were only replacing men who left? 10% 15% It sounds small, but in economics, 5% is a apocolypic shift.
So whey IF dragoons 20% of his TOTAL population into military service, that's 20% of 565 M = 113 active military personel. But, out of his labor pool, which using the US statistics is ~40% of the population, that's half of your available workers. HALF.
And then, let's get to the point that these nations are either making their own arms or buying them. The point can be made either way; either a huge portion of your production is being siphoned off from Dept I or Dept II goods (that's consumer or capital goods if you're wondering) into the useless Dept III (means of destruction, weapons). So if IF claims to be able to launch x number of missiles because he makes nothing but missiles all day, who is growing the food, making the appliances, running the stores? It's an economists nightmare. If you don't make the weapons yourself, you need to fund those purchaces, which means huge amounts of production for export, which still leaves the country, leaving your country with nothing to eat or sit on.
Some people might try to bring up DPRK (N. Korea) as an example of a nation with a huge % military, but I have yet to be provided with the stat to back that up. Furthermore, their economy is toast. If you want that high %, are you willing to accept that your economy is incapable of providing for your people? Likely not, since people say a powerhouse economy allows them to fund huge militaries. This is true, to a point. There's a line when the military steps on the economy's foot.
Still not convinced huge military %'s hurt the economy? What happens when you take a large % of your work force and, effectively, remove them from the labor market? Labor supply goes down while demand goes up, driving wages up, which (if you're a classical economist) kills profitability.
Now let's take a military that is 2.5% of total population. This is, clearly, a more realistic claim, but still fatal to their economy. Let's say a nation has 12 M citizens. 2.5% of 12 M = 300k, availabe labor pool for 12 M = 4.8, so active military personel out of the labor pool = 7%. Adjust for unequal male/female involvement, you're looking at closer to 10%. Not to bad, but still very high in terms of yanking a segment of the population out of the labor pool. But also remember, that active personel is not combat personel. What % of that 300k is actually going to see any combat? How many troops can this nation deploy at a time, vs how many are actually employed?
Now I'm not saying you can't claim to have 2.5% of your total population in your military, but they won't all be storming the beaches and I'd like to see people taking the economic effects in stride. I'm at the point where I feel like a god mode is when you just assume away a problem (i.e. my bombs never miss, my soldiers never die etc), and assuming the economic effects of large militaries away, well, you get my point. All I want here is to add more depth and dimension to this game and, maybe, get people to think twice about what they're doing.
edit: added because it's true and necessary for some people who can't quite get a grasp on reality:
there is also the issue of economies of scale. the larger your nation the larger the economic superstructure to keep your nation running is. you see, we all think intuitively that mechanization decreases the number of workers we need to make the same amount of goods; tractors increase farm yeilds while requiring fewer hands, robots in car factories speed production. what you don't think of but is nonetheless true is more workers end up being needed to make the tractor than are saved in the tractor's use. this is why technology only increases with population; you need larger and larger labor surpluses in order to spare those people to make new things.
tractors are made of engines, wheels, axles, frames, spark plugs etc etc, and all these parts need seperate lines, if not whole factories, to make. so when you increase your tech level you also increase the % of the population that needs to stay in the work force in order for your nation to function. this is true down the line; every high tech gadget you've got lowers the number of troops you can raise. not that it matters, high tech is meant to make soldiers more effective, and if you keep a small, well armed army you get to overlook those huge force projection problems a 2M man infantry group is going to have.
so my point in this addendum is, as you get bigger plan to decrease the % of people in your army. this means your army size will remain static or grow very slightly, but that's not a big deal because it has other pay offs. but if you think that a 400M person nation is going to drop 5% of its population on the battlefeild expect to see this link again and have a very nit picky economist wonder about what exactly you're doing.
Last edited by Seocc on Fri May 09, 2003 5:22 am; edited 2 times in total
Why High % Armies are Quite Unrealistic
There are a lot of nations which claim to have ungodly percentages of their population in their military (ranging from the 20% IF and NRBC claim, to the more reasonable 2.5-4% i saw when i first got here). At first, we want to say, yes, militaristic regimes can in fact dragoon this many troops into service, especially if they have compulsory military service and big defense spending. I agree, nations like that can in fact raise large % militaries, but for numerous economic reasons, most of the %'s used are in fact insanely self destructive.
Let's use the US as a case study, not for their military, but because information on their census is very readily availabe. Circa 2000 the census put the US population around 250 M, with ~108 M of those people between the ages of 18 and 44. Now, to be realistic, most nations are not going to have women serving in the same capacity as men (i'm not saying it's right, just that realistically, that's how it is). So your pool for troops is more than half of 108 M, let's say 70 M to represent women in support roles, whatever. Coincidentally, 18 to 44 is also the primary demographic for the labor pool; after 44 non professionals tend to get pushed out in favor of younger workers who can be paid less, work more and not put in for viagra perscriptions under the company health plan. So every soldier you take means you are losing workers.
If you doubt the power of military service to greviously affect the labor pool, look at the US during WWII; it as widely accepted that the need for women to work, replacing the men who left for Europe and Asia, forced owners to accept women into the workforce. What % of the workforce did they make up, if they were only replacing men who left? 10% 15% It sounds small, but in economics, 5% is a apocolypic shift.
So whey IF dragoons 20% of his TOTAL population into military service, that's 20% of 565 M = 113 active military personel. But, out of his labor pool, which using the US statistics is ~40% of the population, that's half of your available workers. HALF.
And then, let's get to the point that these nations are either making their own arms or buying them. The point can be made either way; either a huge portion of your production is being siphoned off from Dept I or Dept II goods (that's consumer or capital goods if you're wondering) into the useless Dept III (means of destruction, weapons). So if IF claims to be able to launch x number of missiles because he makes nothing but missiles all day, who is growing the food, making the appliances, running the stores? It's an economists nightmare. If you don't make the weapons yourself, you need to fund those purchaces, which means huge amounts of production for export, which still leaves the country, leaving your country with nothing to eat or sit on.
Some people might try to bring up DPRK (N. Korea) as an example of a nation with a huge % military, but I have yet to be provided with the stat to back that up. Furthermore, their economy is toast. If you want that high %, are you willing to accept that your economy is incapable of providing for your people? Likely not, since people say a powerhouse economy allows them to fund huge militaries. This is true, to a point. There's a line when the military steps on the economy's foot.
Still not convinced huge military %'s hurt the economy? What happens when you take a large % of your work force and, effectively, remove them from the labor market? Labor supply goes down while demand goes up, driving wages up, which (if you're a classical economist) kills profitability.
Now let's take a military that is 2.5% of total population. This is, clearly, a more realistic claim, but still fatal to their economy. Let's say a nation has 12 M citizens. 2.5% of 12 M = 300k, availabe labor pool for 12 M = 4.8, so active military personel out of the labor pool = 7%. Adjust for unequal male/female involvement, you're looking at closer to 10%. Not to bad, but still very high in terms of yanking a segment of the population out of the labor pool. But also remember, that active personel is not combat personel. What % of that 300k is actually going to see any combat? How many troops can this nation deploy at a time, vs how many are actually employed?
Now I'm not saying you can't claim to have 2.5% of your total population in your military, but they won't all be storming the beaches and I'd like to see people taking the economic effects in stride. I'm at the point where I feel like a god mode is when you just assume away a problem (i.e. my bombs never miss, my soldiers never die etc), and assuming the economic effects of large militaries away, well, you get my point. All I want here is to add more depth and dimension to this game and, maybe, get people to think twice about what they're doing.
edit: added because it's true and necessary for some people who can't quite get a grasp on reality:
there is also the issue of economies of scale. the larger your nation the larger the economic superstructure to keep your nation running is. you see, we all think intuitively that mechanization decreases the number of workers we need to make the same amount of goods; tractors increase farm yeilds while requiring fewer hands, robots in car factories speed production. what you don't think of but is nonetheless true is more workers end up being needed to make the tractor than are saved in the tractor's use. this is why technology only increases with population; you need larger and larger labor surpluses in order to spare those people to make new things.
tractors are made of engines, wheels, axles, frames, spark plugs etc etc, and all these parts need seperate lines, if not whole factories, to make. so when you increase your tech level you also increase the % of the population that needs to stay in the work force in order for your nation to function. this is true down the line; every high tech gadget you've got lowers the number of troops you can raise. not that it matters, high tech is meant to make soldiers more effective, and if you keep a small, well armed army you get to overlook those huge force projection problems a 2M man infantry group is going to have.
so my point in this addendum is, as you get bigger plan to decrease the % of people in your army. this means your army size will remain static or grow very slightly, but that's not a big deal because it has other pay offs. but if you think that a 400M person nation is going to drop 5% of its population on the battlefeild expect to see this link again and have a very nit picky economist wonder about what exactly you're doing.
Last edited by Seocc on Fri May 09, 2003 5:22 am; edited 2 times in total