China - while it could literally wipe its *** with India in a war could do jack **** in a conflict against Australia. Chinese military power manifests itself purely as a land based military force thanks to its overwhelming size, sheer firepower, a moderate technological level and adequate military competency. However in terms of its Air and Naval capabilities (especially its naval capabilities) China is seriously lacking and has next to 0 power projection capabilities. Thus China remains only a regional land based military power pretty much capable of decimating any Southeast Asian nation. However, another factor to consider with China is its asymmetric warfare capabilities which make it highly improbable that any western military (even the United States) could successfully operate in the lateral zones or skies around China - as for successfully invading China in a D-Day style invasion, forget about it. To sum it up, China is not a global military power, but a regional power. It cannot project any meaningful military power outside of Southeast Asia but is very capable thanks to its asymmetric capabilities to repel any attack from any western armed force.
Israel - seriously? Israel has no military capabilities whatsoever that would enable it to project power into Europe and defeat any European power. Israel at best can project air power over the middle east and gain air supremacy with relative ease... but that is the limit to Israeli military power. Europe on the other hand houses two global military powers, Britain and France both of which have truly wide ranging military capabilities and a technological superiority over Israel. Britain who is in possession of Trafalgar and Astute class nuclear submarines armed with Tomahawk cruise missiles could target and engage Israeli air bases at will - rendering a large portion of the Israeli Air Force ground or destroyed. Then the RAF could deploy squadrons of Typhoons for air defence and Tornado GR4s for strike missions to their forward RAF bases at Cyprus. The RAF could simply fly sortie after sortie offloading Storm Shadow standoff cruise missiles again targeting IAF bases, naval ports or other Israeli defence infrastructure... the ranges at which the RAF would be capable of offloading their Storm Shadow cruise missiles would enable them to turn around and bugger off back to base before any remaining IAF air assets could launch a counter defensive. This simple example shows the difference between a true military power with a fully fledged armed force and wide ranging military capabilities and a small mediocre regional power like Israel whose armed forces are designed molest third world muslim nations. Saudi Arabia is out of Israels league.
Russia - a true global military power second only to the United States. However despite Russia's military prowess it is realistically not that much more powerful than either Britain or France. Decades of decay have left the Russian armed forces in a sorry state, ageing equipment, equipment performance and reliability are serious issues. Another issue is the current grossly overstretched position the Russian armed forces find themselves in. With approx 350,000 - 400,000 ground based soldiers there is little flexibility when they are garrisoned over 17,000,000 square kilometers!! The medium sized Russian Navy is split between various fleets from the North Sea to the Arctic, Baltic and Pacific... each fleet similar in size and composition to a small European Navy. The Russian Air Force likewise fares no better, spread thinly over such a large country to defend such a large chunk of airspace... not to mention large numbers of aircraft are placed in storage and are inactive due to a lack of maintenance. Sure Russia is fully capable of policing ex-Soviet states and is militarily capable of taking on the entirety of Eastern Europe or Central Asia etc But Russia in its current state could not go toe to toe with a serious military power (i.e any member of the UNSC) or even a major power with the technological capabilities and will to defend their borders (i.e Germany, Japan, South Korea).
IMO - and please remember I favour power projection, high standards of technology, wide ranging war winning capabilities and battlefield experience.
#1 USA
--A gap the size of the Grand Canyon--
#2 Russia
#3 Britain/France
#4 Britain/France
--Tiny gap--
#5 China/Japan
#6 China/Japan
--Gap--
#7 South Korea
#8 Germany (my country)
#9 India
#10 Saudi Arabia
#11 Israel
#12 Italy
#13 Australia
#14 Canada
#15 Pakistan
#16 Turkey
#17 North Korea
#18 Brazil
gone are the days of european power
