Two Russian T-90M tanks on display in Volgograd, Russia, ahead of Russia’s annual Victory Day celebrations in May 2025. Russia, long the world’s largest operator of tanks, has been dethroned this year following losses in Ukraine. (Shutterstock/AnBoris)

These Five Countries Have the Biggest Tank Arsenals on the Planet

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Russia dominated the list of largest tank operators several years ago—but its losses against Ukraine have slashed its stocks by thousands of vehicles.

The viability of the tank as a weapon on the modern battlefield has been hotly debated since the start of the 21st century. The 1991 Gulf War, in which US-led coalition aircraft demolished Iraqi armor on the ground inside Kuwait, showed that armored vehicles were intensely vulnerable to air attack. Three decades later, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, in which Ukraine’s defenders have used missiles and drones against Russian armor to great effect, has led to further study of the vulnerabilities of tanks.

Despite these losses, tanks are generally not considered obsolete. Instead, the technology is advancing to keep pace with the development of defensive capabilities—both through simple innovations like “cope cages” and “dandelion” armor and through more robust measures like active protection systems. These show that the world powers are still heavily invested in the platform, with thousands of main battle tanks (MBTs) still in service. Heavily concentrated in Asia and North America, the countries with the top five largest combat tank fleets in the world today are China, Russia, North Korea, the United States, and India.

Total Hulls: Nearly 4,000

It is fitting........

© The National Interest