This is the new position of the Spanish Army in the world ranking in 2025

Good news for the Spanish Army. The specialized portal Globalfirepower.com has published its annual ranking of military power of 145 nations. This index, which is carried out from 2005 with information from open sources, takes into account more than 60 factors to establish the relationship of forces between the valued countries and which includes the availability of troops, the total number of weapons and military equipment available to each country, as well as its geographical and economic factors and the local arms industry, among others, and is updated every January. This year, Spain sees a significant improvement in its position, which rises from twentieth last year to seventeenthbehind Iran and ahead of Australia.

The best position that Spain has achieved in the Global Firepower index was in the first report of 2005, in which it appeared as the sixteenth military power in the world. During the period between 2010 and 2017, it did not enter the group of the top 25, where it has remained uninterruptedly since 2018. In recent years, Spain has had a downward trend that has now reversed. From 18th place in 2021, it went to 19th in 2022, dropped to 21st in 2023, recovered one in 2024 and 3 in 2025.

The classification, which tops USA followed by Russia, China, India and South Koreagives Spain an index, called PwrIndx, of 0.3242, which indicates greater military capacity the closer it is to zero. So, USA has a PwrIndx of 0.0744 and Russia of 0.0788, while the last two countries in the ranking, Benin and Bhutanof 4.3156 and 6.3934 respectively.

Relative to the 2024 report, there are two changes among the top 10 positions. The first six powers remain unchanged, headed by USA and to those that follow Russia, China, India, South Korea and United Kingdom. France enter this group by moving Japan to eighth position. They follow him Türkiye and Italy to close it, while Pakistan has fallen from it.

The next 6 countries that precede Spain in 2025 are Brazil, Pakistan, Indonesia, Germany, Israel and Iran. Behind Spain and up to twentieth position, they are followed by Australia, Egypt and Ukraine. Ukraine, after almost three years of war with Russia, has fallen 2 positions compared to last year and 5 since 2023.

As for our neighboring countries, Portugal drops one position to thirty-ninth and Morocco up two to the fifty-ninth.

In NATO and the European Union

Among the countries of the NATO, Spain remains in the seventh position behind USA, United Kingdom, France, Türkiye, Italy and Germanyand ahead of Poland, Sweden and Canada.

In the European Unionalso retains the same fourth position from last year in a classification that leads France, Italy and Germany and that continue, after Spain, Poland, Sweden, Greece, Netherlands, Portugal and Denmark.

Staff

The active personnel of the Armed Forces consists of 133,282 troopsof which 23,000 correspond to the Air and Space Army20,840 to the Navy75,825 to Army and 15,150 to reserve personnel. This places these military bodies in positions 27, 27 and 44, respectively, compared to those of other countries. Global Firepower qualifies as ‘average’ the total number of active and reserve personnel, while those of the Air and Space Army and the Navy are ‘good’ and that of the Army is considered ‘excellent’.

Air and Space Army

Going into more detail, the Global Fire Power report assesses how ‘good’ the capacity of Air and Space Army As for the number of available aircrafta total of 461, which places Spain in 24th place among all countries. The rating drops to ‘average’ when listing the fighters (with 137, 17th place), transport aircraft (with 51, 17th place), training (with 140, 19th place), for special missions (with 8, 26th place), helicopters (with 153, 28th place) and attack helicopters (with 17, position 25). The absence of tanker aircraft in the Spanish air fleet leaves Spain in last place among all the countries included, 145th, in this aspect, with the rating ‘poor’.

Naval Force

The Navy receives the same rating ‘good’ As for the total of ships (with 152, position 21 out of 145 countries). They get the grade ‘average’ the number of aircraft carrier (with 1, position 4), from frigates (11, 7th place), minesweeper (6, 13th place) and submarines (2, 16th place). More discreet is the number of patrol boats22, which relegates the Navy to position 42 in this regard. Spain once again receives the qualification of ‘poor’ and occupy the last position among all countries in the number of helicopter carrier, corvettes and destroyers.

Army

He Army It is the Armed Forces body with the worst position in the Global Fire Power rankings. It does not reach the rating of ‘good’ in any aspect, discounting the effective personnel section already mentioned, and is considered ‘average’ As for the number of tanks (317, position 42), from armored combat vehicles (17,626, position 29), artillery vehicles (95, 34th place) and towed artillery (287, 39th place). The lack of MLRS systems for multiple rocket launches relegates Spain to last place in this aspect with a rating ‘poor’.