Maybe I'm on the of the top 10 best hockey players in all of Ecuador. So what?

Because these lists weren't of the top 10 most powerful militaries in Ecuador. They showed the UK is consistently regarded as having one of the most powerful militaries in the world. If you're on a list of the top 10 best hockey players in the world, it means you're a damn good hockey player. The UK is one of the top 10 most powerful militaries in the world, which means they have a damn powerful military. They're also considered to have one of the most powerful navies in the world as well:

wdmmw.org: Global Naval Powers Ranking (2026)

Which kind of counters your assertion that they have let their national defense capabilities fall to non-existent. They may not have the military you would wish them to have, but they have one of the strongest militaries in the world.

Sorry, no. I get that this board doesn't do debate and doesn't hold the left to any kind of standard for posting facts - you guys just make up whatever you want and post it as fact to the cheers of your audience - but reality tells us a different story.

What are you talking about? I've posted figures - with links - on the military expenditures, manpower, and number of assets for the various military branches. I've posted you links of global assessments of military strength. There is no information that you've provided that refute the fact that Germany, France, the UK, and the other major non-US members of NATO contribute enormous resources and capabilities to their own defense. You don't respond to those, other than to handwave them away as being "OrangeManBad" or whatever.

You disdain these other countries because they don't proportionally to GDP spend as much as you would want them to. They land on the wrong part of the "guns vs. butter" spectrum for your liking. Since that's a values call, there's something to be said for whether that's fair or not. But since military strength isn't graded on a curve, it has no bearing on whether they actually have comparatively powerful and significant national defense systems. It absolutely does not support your intimation that this means that their military strength is a near-nullity.