REUTERS/Umit BektasTurkish Land Forces Commander General Hulusi Aker and other officers gather around an army tank on the Turkish-Syrian border near the southeastern town of Suruc in Sanliurfa province October 6, 2014.
The balance of power in the Middle East is in disarray: A three-year civil war has torn apart Syria and opened up a vacuum for the rise of the Islamic State group; Sunni powers led by Saudi Arabia continue to face off against Shi'ite powers led by Iran; other countries are reeling from uprisings in the Arab Spring; and foreign powers are all taking sides.
Faced with this tense paradigm, every country in the region is building up its own military.
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Indeed, four of the five fastest-growing defense markets in 2013 were in the Middle East, led by Oman — up 115% in a year — and Saudi Arabia — up 300% in a decade — according to IHS Jane's.
We have analyzed each country to rank the most powerful militaries in the Middle East. This ranking does not count foreign powers like the US or their support, though we have noted important alliances. After looking over state militaries, we also profiled (but did not rank) some of the increasingly powerful non-state military groups.
The ranking is based on a holistic assessment of the militaries' operational capabilities and hardware, based on our research and on interviews with Patrick Megahan, an expert from the Foundation of Defense of Democracies' Military Edge project, and Chris Harmer, senior naval analyst at the Institute for the Study of War.
Some countries with large yet incapable militaries rank low on the list; some smaller and technologically advanced militaries from stable states rank fairly high.
Others present analytical challenges that are difficult to get around in a ranking format. For instance, Egypt has an enormous military with little in the way of a recent battlefield record. Syria's military is diminished by three years of war, but it has been able to fulfill the Assad regime's narrow battlefield objectives and field an operational air force.
No ranking will be absolutely exact. But here's our idea of where things stand in one of the world's least-predictable regions.
No. 1 Israel
Ronen Zvulun/Reuters
The Israel Defense Forces has defended against a diverse range of enemies since the country achieved independence in 1948. Israel has successfully fought large conventional armies, like the Egyptian and Syrian militaries in 1967 and 1972, as well as asymmetrical foes, like Palestinian militant groups.Israel has a conscription system in which most Jewish and Druze citizens of the country are required to serve in the military for either two or three years. A close defense relationship with the US and an energetic domestic defense industry give Israel a qualitative edge over all of the region's other militaries: Israel has space assets, advanced fighter jets, high-tech armed drones, and nuclear weapons. Its air force has incredibly high entry and training standards. "Pilot to pilot, airframe to airframe, the Israeli air force is the best in the world," Harmer says.Israel also has one of the region's most battle-ready armies, a force that has fought in four major engagements since 2006 and has experience securing a few of the most problematic borders on earth.Israel's military has also never attempted a coup or ruled the country directly, unlike several others on this list.Thanks to Israel's small size, the military can rapidly mobilize its reserves on relatively short notice.Key allies: The US is the major one, though Israel enjoys a degree of security cooperation with Jordan and Egypt.
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