Army size vs economy, was: [FT][SG][DS] Canada, the US Civil War II, and the structure

Beth Fulton wrote:

> G'day,
> 
> >Uhhh. . . The Canadians can put a division on the ground if they
called
> >up every reservist they have.  And then they would be straining to
> >deploy it--it wouldn't have the logistical tail to sustain long-term
> >operations removed from it's base of supply. 

[snip]

> Not to get picky here John (especially since I haven't really been
> following the thread), but the only reason the US has such a sizeable 
> force is their economy. 

Um... I'd modify that to say "the only reason the US has such a sizeable
"STANDING" force is their economy".

Until some five years back, the Swedish armed forces, fully mobilized,
consisted of some 800,000 men - reasonably well equipped, but not
superbly so. We weren't able to send any large contingents overseas, of
course, but IIRC this is still almost as many as the US can put up if
they mobilize all their reservists (but before they start to enroll more
recruits!). 

(Today our military is in a state of calamitous decline - the C-in-C was
explicitly forbidden to order *any* new equipment a few days ago, and
some months ago the government suddenly decided to withdraw about 1
billion US$ (9 billion SEK - note: US billions, not European <g>) from
the military budget...)

The Finnish army today (if I remember Mikko correctly), again fully
mobilized, has about half a million men. In both cases, the mobilisation
was planned so as to be finished within less than a week - but I'm not
all that sure that this took enemy interference into account :-/

Neither Sweden nor Finland have this many men permanently under arms, of
course - the vast majority are reservists - but John counted the
Canadian
reservists in his estimate of the Canadian forces available for the 2nd
ACW :-)

Later,

Oerjan Ohlson
oerjan.ohlson@telia.com

"Life is like a sewer.
  What you get out of it, depends on what you put into it."
- Hen3ry