The level of militarization is also represented by the relation of military personnel to the total population and physicians. The first and most important indicator in this category is the active (para)military personnel to the total population. Paramilitary personnel were included here, since in many countries the regular military alone does not adequately reflect the total size of the armed forces.

The main criterion for coding an organizational entity as either military or paramilitary is that the forces in question are under the direct control of the government in addition to being armed, uniformed and garrisoned.

For a comprehensive presentation of the available personnel and an adequate representation of the relative level of militarization, a second indicator in this category takes into account the percentage of reserve forces in the total population. This factor is relevant for some countries, such as Switzerland that have a comparably small standing army but a more substantial amount of available reserves within society. The third indicator compares the total amount of military and paramilitary forces with the number of physicians in a country in order to express the relation between military and non-military expertise in a society.

All data on military personnel was compiled from the Military Balance, the yearbook published by the Institute for Strategic and International Studies (IISS). Population size figures were taken from the Vital Statistics Report of the United Nations; data on the number of physicians from the World Health Organization.