In a recent military exercise called ‘Freedom Shield’ conducted in the Yeoncheon area of Gyeonggi Province, South Korea and the United States participated in joint military training. According to a recent report, South Korea’s conventional military strength ranks fifth in the world, following the United States, Russia, China, and India. North Korea is ranked 31st.
On the 27th, Global Firepower (GFP), a military strength evaluation agency, released its ‘2026 Military Strength Ranking,’ where South Korea ranked 5th out of 145 countries evaluated, scoring 0.1642. The country received high scores in categories such as towed artillery, self-propelled artillery, frigate power, and reserve forces.
South Korea’s GFP-assessed military ranking has consistently improved over the years: 9th in 2013, 7th in 2014, and 6th in 2020, reaching 5th place for three consecutive years from 2024.
The top-ranking countries in conventional military strength have consistently been the United States (1st), Russia (2nd), China (3rd), and India (4th) for over 20 years since 2006. Following them are France (6th), Japan (7th), the United Kingdom (8th), Türkiye (9th), and Italy (10th).
North Korea moved up three places from the previous year to rank 31st with a score of 0.5933. After reaching 18th place in 2019, North Korea’s ranking fell to 36th in 2024 but has improved over the last two years.
The GFP military strength index indicates that the closer a score is to 0, the stronger the military power. The index considers over 60 individual metrics, including troop numbers, weapons count, economic power, wartime mobilization capacity, and defense budget.