How Big Is a National Military? · 7:31pm Dec 29th, 2016
How big and rich is your country?
Every soldier is a person who has been removed from the civilian economy, meaning that they are not doing anything directly productive (though they may of course be protecting productive endeavors). They must have food and other supplies -- including fuel, weapons and ammunition -- provided for them by the civilian economy. This sets a rough upper bound on the maximum short-term size of the military, and a smaller upper bound on the maximum long-term size of the military.
Generally this is around 10 or so percent of population short-term (though a full 10 percent is something a culture would do only in extreme crisis) and a few tenths of a percent to percent long term.
Imagine a country of 100 million people. Such a country might have a standing army of a few hundred thousand to a bit over a million, and in a major war might mobilize some millions of other troops, perhaps to a maximum mobilization of about 10 million.
Keep in mind "tooth to tail" ratio. Not all those troops will be front line combatants. Some will be in various support services -- supply, maintenance, medical etc. The more advanced the civilization the higher the percentage will be in the "tail," but the sharper will be the "teeth" because they benefit from this extensive support.
Also keep in mind that the "army" sizes I've given include naval and air forces, or any other service branches one cares to imagine. In World War II, all major combatants fielded air forces with personnel in the hundred thousands to millions, for instance.
Finally, remember that there are only so many suitable recruits at any given time. War is physically and psychologically-demanding. Most of one's military has to consist of people between the age of 16 or so to 35 or so -- younger, and too many immature bodies and minds will break; older, and one is past one's physical prime. Young adolescents and middle-aged or older people are suitable only for light support and garrison duty. Also, in all Human cultures, most military are male, with women relegated to support services.
Equestria appears in the Show to have a population in the high tens of millions (there are individual cities, such as Manehattan, with a milion or more inhabitants). Thus, the long-term Equestrian military cannot be larger than hundreds of thousands to the low millions; in a crisis Equestria might be mobilize as many as ten million Ponies to arms -- maximum. And if it tried to keep this high-end maximum up past a few years, the economy would collapse.
Some cultures have managed to deploy larger "militaries," but this is usually done by formally designating workers or peasants to be "soldiers,"giving them very rudimentary training and passing them out rifles and ammo. Such forces are more properly "militia"or "paramilitary," and about all they can do is serve as "speedbumps" to briefly slow an advancing foe. They lack the equipment, supplies and training for field operations; they are purely local garrisons and in many cases may be only part-time soldiers.
North Korea does this, and Red China used to do this, extensively to inflate their "army" sizes in order to intimidate both America and their neighbors. In my fiction, Compound winds up leading a squad of similar militia in the final battles for Hive Hunger-Prime.
In conclusion, a military must be based off the country it serves, unless it is a force of mercenaries being hired by other Powers, and even then it is limited by the number of potential recruits in the population.
Equestria seems to rely on a militia rather than a standing army, at least in the show, with the exception of a small force of Royal Guards (maybe several hundred strong?) and a few dozen Wonderbolts. Admittedly, we haven't seen many attempted military actions. There could be a full size army hiding somewhere and the cast just never visits the military bases.
It seems more likely that they don't have any enemies where a conventional army would be useful (there are foreign countries but Equestria seems to be surrounded mostly by wilderness and oceans) so the plan would be to call one up if they ever needed it (eg, Sombra timeline). Maybe that's why they were losing against Sombra.
Also, wow. Manehattan is more a copy of Manhattan Island than New York City as a whole, but even Manhattan Island has almost 2 million people living on it. Jeez.
(The comics make it more explicit, with a few actual military engagements that are definitely using milita forces + Celestia.)
I agree both with your population estimates and the rule of thumb regarding military size. I'd estimate the entire Equestrian population at around 50 million, with probably 5 million in Greater Manehatten alone, and probably several million more each in Fillydelphia and Baltimare. Looking on the map it looks like there are very few large population centers in Equestria outside the coastlines (Canterlot, Crystal Empire, and Cloudsdale look like they have a few hundred thousand each).
I think 4360513 nailed it, Equestria is even more geographically isolated from large scale competitors than the US is, so a large standing army serves little purpose (before the start of the show). One of the primary military antagonists (a large hostile populace, not a few angry demigod monsters to be beaten by alicorns) is the changling nation, but based on the season 6 finale they're on the other side of the planet from Equestria (remember that when Discord teleports to the changling capital, it goes from night to day). We've never seen an organized group of minotaurs, the griffons have been in a failed state for centuries, and the Yaks have been in intense self-imposed isolation. The dragons from the south would seem to be a credibly military threat, but Torch has quite possibly been ruling the dragons for longer than Celestia has been ruling the ponies, if he was going to invade he would have done so centuries ago.
And of course, Celestia having control of the sun is the equivalent of the Doomsday Device the USSR had in Dr. Strangelove, if someone wipes out Canterlot (alicorn and most of the unicorns) there goes the planet. Equestria doesn't seem to be part of any alliances that would compel it to send soldiers abroad (maybe Maretania, but that's it). So yeah, tiny military useful for bodyguarding and extreme animal control.
4360513
I find it unlikely that the regular Equestrian military is only a few hundred Guards backed up by a few dozen Wonderbolts, in a nation with a population in the high tens of millions If Equestria is remarkably peaceful and secure, as it seems to be, we would expect to see a standing military in the tens of thousands; the size the United States of America drew its armed force down to in its most peaceful and isolationist periods. Such a force would be used as a cadre around which an army of hundreds of thousands to millions could be raised in a military crisis.
Remember, this has to include the equivalent of the Army, Navy and Air Force. Equestria canonically has major ports and presumably international commerce to protect; she also has a Kind capable of flight (Pegasi) and airships. And there are definitely both internal and external threats: large portions of Equestrian territory are occupied by barbarian or alien tribes (Buffalo, Deer etc.), while it is outright stated in the series that there are foreign lands which send ambassadors.
Manehattan itself is an analogue of Manhattan Island, though in my world it's a larger island and merely the the most important island of a small coastal island chain (which is also true in our world, by the way -- Staten Island and parts of Long Island are also parts of New York City). If it is anything like late 19th / early 20th century Manhattan, it is the center of a larger metropolitan area, economically-united by commuter trains. This happened even before the automobile, and of course a city spreads out further after motorcars become common.
And Manehattan is not the only large city shown. There are Canterlot, Fillydelphia, Baltimare, Seaddle, Vanhoover, Las Pegasus and Applewood, to name the ones directly shown on the map and probably having populations of at least the tens to a few hundred thousand, in some cases possibly a million or more. And remember how settlement patterns work -- for every conurbation of magnitude X there will be several to dozens of magnitude X-1, a hundred or more of magnitude X-2, and so on.
So if Manehattan has a population of, say, 1 million (mid 19th century Manhattan), there will be roughly 10 cities of about 100 thousand and 100 of about 10 thousand or less in the Manehattan metropolitan area (eventually you reach a limit based on available land and minimum economic size, though, so it does not follow that there will be 10 thousand of about 100, for instance. But we can reasonably assume that Manehattan is the center of a metropolitan area with a few million Ponies.
On a national scale, and granted that Manehattan is an exceptionally-large city, that comes out to some tens of millions of Ponies nationwide. I go with around 85 million c. YOH 1500 (the Return of Luna) for the Shadow Wars Story Verse. Such a nation could easily have one-thousandth of its population permanently at arms, for a military of 85 thousand, spread out between the service branches and various bases in parts of the country where threats were expected.
This would not be a very militarized society. Suppose that 50% of the troops are Earth Ponies, 30% Pegasi and 20% Unicorns. That meanst that there are around 42 thousand Earth Ponies: if 75% are in the Army that's about 31 thousand Earth Pony infantry. These would be stationed mostly at the capital, the major ports and the sensitive borders (such as the Frozen Waste, Mexicolt and Buffalo and Deer country). The most one would see in any one place would be a battalion or so (about 250 or so Ponies) with maybe a regiment (500-1000 Ponies) concentrating for a major crisis. The remaining 11 thousand Earth Ponies would serve mostly in the Royal Navy.
The Pegasi -- about 25 thousand -- would be divided betwen the Royal Navy and the Air Guard, with say 12 thousand in each. That comes to a Navy of a bit over 33 thousand -- say 40 thousand when we add in some Unicorns -- which is sufficient if we assume that half of them are doing shore duty to reasonably-crew maybe half a dozen capital ships and a couple dozen frigates, tops, which is more than adequate to put down piracy. The Air Guard winds up with about 6 thousand, of which maybe 2 thousand or so base and fly a dozen or so military airships and the remaining 4 thousand serve as air cavalry.
Of the Unicorns -- about 17 thousand of them -- we divide them between the three main service branches, mostly as magical / technical support, ranging from combat mages to ship's engineers. Some of these are very elite and have tremendous powers or skills: for instance, Shining Armor is able to generate a force field capable of protecting a medium-sized city.
This does not include law enforcement, intelligence and security forces, such as the City Watches, Military Intelligence or the Night Watch. These could easily total over a hundred thousand or more, spread out in various offices and stations around the country.
The elite of the elite, which would be classed as "special forces," would be the Alicorn Princesses, the Elements of Harmony and other special units such as Kudzuhaiku's Rat Catchers (essentially, anti-monster disease control tunnel rats). These have special capabilities which defy easy categorization save under some very complex wargaming rules.
4360548
A total military under a hundred thousand, supported by maybe a hundred or two hundred thousand police, security, intelligence other personnel, is what I'm estimating for Equestria around (say) YOH 1490 (ten years Before Luna's Return), which is absurdly tiny for a continental empire, being around equivalent to that of the USA in the early 1890's. Keep in mind that when a crisis occurs, most of that military is deployed somewhere else: what you get as first-responders is what happens to be nearby. And also keep in mind that, both because of animation and time limitations, what they show on screen is a fraction of what actually happens when things go pear-shaped.
I will note that when Chrysalis attacked Canterlot, the fighting went on for hours. It was still going on when Cadance and Shining Armor finally repelled the Changelings. Chrysalis attacked with a force presumably in the thousands; I'm guessing that there were several battalions of Guards in the city. All that fighting was not just Octavia's band, Derpy going berserk in defense of her children, and Moon Dancer going berserk in defense of her books.
Hmmm, interesting. This is why I followed you, for the suprisingly interesting walls of text you put out every now and then. I think you're taking this whole FiMFiction thing too seriously, but thats just me.
Anything in particular that inspired this?
4360561 That makes sense in terms of the numbers of military and assorted personnel.
I also agree that the story is focused on Twilight and her friends, the Royal Guard's battles are an extradiegetic scenario that mostly happen off-screen. I would point out in the case of the Canterlot Invasion though, that it occurred in the middle of a royal wedding when there was an active threat to the proceedings that had been known about for at least a week (assuming the picnic at the beginning of the 2-parter where the security shield around Canterlot is shown in the background is at least a week before the actual wedding takes place). To me that suggests Equestria would have time and inclination to mobilize troops from outlying areas and ship them to Canterlot, and that if you're using the time of fighting to estimate the number of battalions stationed in Canterlot (which is clever), I would guess there are fewer forces stationed there during normal times, as opposed to battalions in Manehatten or wherever.
Also, thinking about this: In the Sombra timeline, where we get to see Equestria mobilize for total war; Celestia personally takes to the field. Sure, she's unlikely to fall in battle unless Sombra goes after her personally and gets lucky, but even the tiniest risk to her person if she is the sole mover of the sun would be incredibly unethical. To me this suggests that Celestia has insured that the sun can continue to be raised in the event of her death. Whether it's just the unicorns back at Canterlot still know how to do it or something else, though in this timeline Luna does not appear to be present.
4360608
Someone raised the question on the Forum, I wrote a detailed response, and then I decided to elaborate and turn it into a blog post.
I think Secrets of a royal guard and it's accompanying stories do a wonderful job of depicting Equestria from a military standpoint going into relaloistic training, house guards, and general military.
Rites of Ascension Dose a great job of depiction Equestria's military intelligence and both are headcannon for me for how Equestria defends themselves.
all in all an interesting blog that gets you thinking.
4360626
Oh yes. It's basically about Twilight Sparkle and the Ponies she knows personally. It's broadened from just the Mane Six to include the Cutie Mark Crusaders and Starlight Glimmer and some others, but it's still not Equestria: The World At War.
Yes, I think that Canterlot normally only has a battalion to a regiment's worth of troops stationed there, of which maybe a company is on duty in the whole Palace complex (not only the Royal Palace proper but barracks attached to it) and that many only because it's the capital. Which is to say, less than a thousand Guards. Though Canterlot is also headquarters to a lot of intelligence, security and special forces which would not be useless in the event of an armed attack.
There would have been two obvious reasons to bring in additional troops during the Royal Wedding. These would be security against threatened attack, and the strong desire of Guard officers to attend the festivities. For that reason, there may well have been thousands of Guards in Equestria for that event.
4360654
Just out of curiosity, what is your headcanon as regards the "threatened attack"? What evidence of a threat can so solid that martial law is justified but not solid enough to indicate the nature of the threat in any way?
4361000
In that particular world, it could include prophecies or magical visions, or in any world a series of mysterious events getting closer and closer to the national capital. Celestia obviously suspected something was going to attack Canterlot during the Royal Wedding, but she didn't know what.
Heck, in the real world, suppose the NSA intercepted traffic from Muslim terrorist organizations to unknown recipients in Washington DC, with occasional statements such as "the infidels and crusaders shall weep after Inauguration Day." We would be pretty sure that the Terrorists were going to attempt an attack on our national capital, but we would not know exactly what form this attack would take, would we? And we'd be very likely to mobilize extra forces to protect the capital during Inauguration Day, then.
4360561 All that fighting was not just Octavia's band, Derpy going berserk in defense of her children, and Moon Dancer going berserk in defense of her books.
Now I imagine a small pack of Changelings breaking in to Dancer's library. She hides in terror until she sees some of them absently nibble on the paper from her books -- at which point a berserk pony nerd charges out blasting away with every attack spell she knows.
Speaking of the Changelings, what kind of a military do you think they have? I like the idea that they're more like barbarian peoples like the Huns; capable of surviving by raiding and robbery aimed against the more settled and prosperous civilizations around them, at the price of having nearly all their adults be fighters. Though even then I think there would be a difference between the rank-and-file who basically supply warm bodies for the swarm and the professional warriors who are full-time fighters.