ABSTRACT
The nonmilitary determinants of international strength and power and their sources are as richly various and variable as those of military capacity. Military strength is the joint product of the numbers of military personnel and the goods and services that determine the military efficiency of the peoplepower. Decolonization and other political and economic developments outside the Western world have caused the global distribution of relative military capabilities to become less uneven and more pluralist than it was prior to and immediately following World War II. The major states are usually at peace for much longer periods of time than they are at war; and periods of peace therefore give more scope for the consummation of longer-run changes in political, economic, and cultural factors that condition comparative military capacity. States also can gain in strength and power by appealing to others on political-ideological, religious, and cultural grounds.
