Politics

Mapping the Greatest Empires of History

Published

8 years ago

August 8, 2016

Jeff Desjardins

Just like the stock market, the history of the greatest empires is cyclical in nature. Even the most powerful empires have crashed and burned – and it is this creative destruction that creates the next opportunity for new civilizations and cultures to rise.

At its height, the Roman Empire spanned across 5,000,000 km² with 70 million people within its borders. Yet, despite massive amounts of riches and its fearsome legionaries, Rome slowly but surely self-destructed. While there are many complex factors involved in this including the debasement the empire’s currency, this collapse set the stage for the next cycle.

The Byzantines would take over in the East, and centuries later the Holy Roman Empire eventually would emerge in the West. The nomadic Huns unified a formidable empire under Attila in the grasslands of the Western Steppe. To the south of the Mediterranean, the Umayyad Caliphate became one of the greatest empires ever formed.

Mapping the Greatest Empires of History

The following infographic from Just the Flight looks at the greatest empires of history, and their geographical and political footprints.

Mapping the Greatest Empires of History

What important lessons for business and investing can we take home from the cyclical nature of empires?

For one, even empires that once seemed impenetrable have fallen apart. We must be vigilant to spot cracks in our investments and business ideas at all times, because even the mightiest companies can bite the dust. The music industry was once a machine: there was an oligopoly of major labels that could produce radio singles and market them to rake in money. Many of these companies did not see the writing on the wall as it happened, and now Apple, Spotify, and other companies are eating their lunch.

Lastly, even in the wake of the worst crash, there are opportunities available to build something great. Things were gruesome for many of the empires that imploded, but there were certainly people that were able to prosper even in spite of the tough times. The “heroes” of The Financial Crisis such as Michael Burry and Steve Eisman were able to recognize a disaster, while making smart decisions to help them build their own empires and legacies.

War

Visualized: Top 15 Global Tank Fleets

Heavily armed and armored, the modern tank is a versatile and mobile weapons platform, and a critical piece of contemporary warfare.

Published

1 month ago

March 15, 2024

Chris Dickert

The Top 15 Global Tank Fleets

This was originally posted on our Voronoi app. Download the app for free on iOS or Android and discover incredible data-driven charts from a variety of trusted sources.

Heavily armed and armored, the modern tank is a versatile and mobile weapons platform, and a critical piece of contemporary warfare.

This visualization shows the top 15 global tank fleets, using data from the 2024 Military Balance report from the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS).

Let’s take an in-depth look at the top three fleets:

1. United States

As the world’s pre-eminent military power, it’s perhaps no surprise that the United States also has the largest tank fleet, by a wide margin.

In total, they have just over 45,000 armored fighting vehicles in operation, along with 2,640 main battle tanks (MBTs), and 12,800 vehicles in storage, of which 2,000 are main battle tanks.

Category	Vehicles	Global rank
Main battle tanks	2,640	4
Armored reconnaissance	1,745	1
Infantry fighting vehicles	3,262	3
Armored personnel carriers	10,644	1
Amphibious assault vehicles	1,401	1
Armored utility vehicles	28,445	1
Storage	12,800	1
Total	60,937	1

The U.S. is internalizing the lessons from the ongoing invasion of Ukraine, where Western-supplied anti-tank weapons and massed Ukrainian artillery have been cutting Russian tanks to pieces. As a result, the U.S. recently canceled an upgrade of the M1 Abrams in favor of a more ambitious upgrade.

Meanwhile, the U.S. is nervously eyeing a more confident China and a potential clash over Taiwan, where air and naval forces will be critical. However, a recent war game showed that Taiwanese mechanized ground forces, kitted out with American-made tanks and armored fighting vehicles, were critical in keeping the island autonomous.

2. Russia

According to Oryx, a Dutch open-source intelligence defense website, at time of writing, Russia has lost almost 2,800 main battle tanks since invading Ukraine. Considering that in the 2022 edition of the Military Balance, Russia was estimated to have 2,927 MBTs in operation, those are some hefty losses.

Russia has been able to maintain about 2,000 MBTs in the field, in part, by increasing domestic production. Many defense plants have been taken over by state-owned Rostec and now operate around the clock. Russia is also now spending a full third of their budget on defense, equivalent to about 7.5% of GDP.

At the same time, they’ve also been drawing down their Soviet-era stockpiles, which are modernized before being sent to the front. Just how long they can keep this up is an open question; their stockpiles are large, but not limitless. Here is what their storage levels look like:

Category	2023	2024	YOY change
Main battle tanks	5,000	4,000	-20.0%
Armored reconnaissance	1,000	100	-90.0%
Infantry fighting vehicles	4,000	2,800	-30.0%
Armored personnel carriers	6,000	2,300	-61.7%
Total	16,000	9,200	-42.5%

3. China

China holds the third overall spot and top place globally for the number of main battle tanks in operation. Untypically, the People’s Liberation Army has no armored vehicles in storage, which perhaps isn’t surprising when you consider that China has been rapidly modernizing its military and that stockpiles usually contain older models.

China also has one of the world’s largest fleets of armored fighting vehicles, second only to the United States. Breaking down that headline number, we can also see that they have the largest number of light tanks, wheeled guns, and infantry fighting vehicles.

Category	Vehicles	Global rank
Main battle tanks	4,700	1
Light tanks	1,330	1
Wheeled guns	1,250	1
Infantry fighting vehicles	8,200	1
Armored personnel carriers	3,604	5
Airborne combat vehicles	180	2
Amphibious assault vehicles	990	2
Total	20,254	3

This is equipment that would be integral if China were to make an attempt to reunify Taiwan with the mainland by force, where lightly armored mechanized units need to move with speed to occupy the island before Western allies can enter the fray. It’s worth noting that China also has one of the world’s largest fleets of amphibious assault vehicles.

End of the Tank?

Many commentators at the outset of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, were quick to predict the end of the tank, however, to paraphrase Mark Twain, reports of the tank’s demise are greatly exaggerated.

With the U.S. and China both developing remote and autonomous armored vehicles, tanks could be quite different in the future, but there is nothing else that matches them for firepower, mobility, and survivability on the modern battlefield today.