Measuring Military Power

• In Event: New Methods in the Study of Conflict Dynamics

Abstract

Military power is a core concept in international relations. However, extant measures overweight either population or wealth, leading to problems with their face, content, and context validity. This research introduces a new measure of country military power based on a country’s weapons arsenal. The core argument motivating the measure is that countries with better and more weapons have more military power. After introducing the measure we assess and compare its face, content, and context validity with alternative measures of military power. Overall, we find that measuring military power based on weapons leads to a more valid indicator.

Author

• Mark Souva, Florida State University