Need

Discerning visitors may notice I have neglected a critical consideration with regard to the military system.

I mean, while discussing the senior-to-junior ratio, I have not touched on the size of army that is actually needed for a country.

Em… no. The issue is not the size of the army as a whole. From what we have discussed, the question should be the number of front line soldiers that a country need.

And it is not all that difficult to calculate – because that depends on the provision of hardware, which is known and change easily anticipated. To go one step further, by knowing the size of front line soldiers needed and the average number of years that they would be in service (that is, before promoting to do a senior job or leaving the army), one could plan the size of military schools so that the number of graduate would meet the need.

PS. With the discussion so far, it is not difficult to predict what would happen if there is a sudden surge in the number of graduates from the military school - or I shall leave it to your imagination.