Composite Index of National Capability by Country 2024

The Composite Index of National Capability (CINC) is one way to evaluate the resources that a country has available to support a war. This metric examines multiple criteria to show whether a country has the resources available to support its power on the world stage. Consequently, the CINC score remains a way to compare other nations to each other in their levels of national power.

What the Composite Index of National Capacity Means

The CINC looks at the materials a country has to determine its capacity for power. This score averages six major components necessary for building a significant military force, which can maintain power on the global stage.

Problems with the CINC

Unfortunately, one of the downsides to the CINC comes mainly from its heavy reliance on a handful of statistics to determine the power of a nation. Consequently, a country may appear to have a lot of power per its CINC by having a large military force but lacks the internal resources to become a major international force. For instance, in 1975 the Soviet Union had a higher CINC than the United States but had internal welfare problems that made using this power globally difficult.

Another concern for using the CINC to evaluate countries in the 21st century comes from the metric's reliance on power markers of the mid-20th century. Steel production once could have indicated a nation's capacity for manufacturing war materials at home, but modern warfare relies less on close combat than it once did. Therefore, some nations may have more global power than their CINC scores would suggest.

Calculating the Composite Index of National Capacity

Six power factors determine the total CINC for a country. These factors are the total population, urban population, number of military personnel, military spending, energy consumption, and iron and steel production. The metric requires dividing each factor for an individual country by the corresponding global number to find the ratio of power.

The CINC comes from taking a simple average of six ratios of power.

Countries with High CINC Values

China has the highest CINC value as of 2023, based on 2007 data with a score of 0.198566. The United States placed second with a CINC of 0.142149.

Countries that Have Low CINC Values

Two countries, Tuvalu and Nauru, had CINC scores of 0.000 in the 2007 dataset, placing both at the low end of the CINC score list.