Services of Russia, China, India and Korea: Land, Sea, Air and Missile Branches

The land force of the Russian Armed Forces, with its main command in Moscow. The service dates its lineage back to 1550, but its current form was created in 1992 when Russia formed its own armed forces from the Soviet ones. It has since fought in both Chechen wars and been deployed on a large scale in the Russo-Ukrainian War.

The naval arm, said to have existed in various forms since 1696, when Peter the Great established the Imperial Russian Navy. Its present form dates from January 1992 and it holds most of the former Soviet naval forces, organized into the Northern, Pacific, Black Sea and Baltic fleets, the Caspian Flotilla, Naval Aviation and the Coastal Troops.

A separate combat arm created on 17 December 1959 to operate Soviet land-based ballistic missiles, and still the controller of Russia's land-based intercontinental missiles. With Long Range Aviation and the Navy's ballistic missile submarines it forms the nuclear triad, and after 1991 missiles in Belarus, Kazakhstan and Ukraine were transferred to Russia.

The maritime branch of China's army, formally established on 23 April 1949. For decades mainly a coastal defence force, it shifted after the 1990s toward the marginal seas and then farther out, and is organized into the North Sea, East Sea and South Sea fleets with Surface, Submarine, Coastal Defense, Marine and Naval Air components.

Formally established on 11 November 1949, though its roots lie in a small aviation unit set up by the Chinese Communist Party in 1924 with Soviet training. It first fought in the Korean War flying the MiG-15, and from 2017 it fielded the Chengdu J-20 stealth fighter.

The strategic and tactical missile force of China, established on 1 July 1966 and renamed from the Second Artillery Corps on 1 January 2016. It manages ballistic, hypersonic and cruise missiles, both nuclear and conventional, and answers directly to the Central Military Commission.

A missile branch of the Korean People's Army founded in 2012, operating surface-to-surface missiles in nuclear and conventional strike roles. Its page records a discrepancy worth noting: the article text gives 2012 as its founding, while the infobox cites an official claim of 3 July 1999.

Its origins are traced to 1612, when an English vessel under Captain Thomas Best defeated the Portuguese at the Battle of Swally. The Royal prefix was dropped and the name Indian Navy adopted when India became a republic on 26 January 1950, and since October 2008 it has kept a frontline warship continuously in the Gulf of Aden.

Established on 8 October 1932 as an auxiliary air force of British India, it took its present name when India became a republic in January 1950. It has been involved in four wars with Pakistan and in operations including Operation Vijay, Operation Meghdoot, Operation Cactus and Operation Poomalai.