> “You spend a lot, but you get the best!” sounds a lot better than “You spend a lot, but we still suck!”

This argument doesn't make any sense. The US military is better than the next top three militaries combined. The Ukraine war is showing the superiority of decades old Western tech.

That doesn’t stop the DoD from wanting Americans to know that fact, because that’s how they’re funded.

It can show that the best still isn't good enough for some scenarios, including this scenario where unmanned aircraft are entering US airspace unimpeded.

The US military might be better than the rest, but they were still defeated by poor people in the desert with some Casio watches and decades' old AKs.

Similarly, it seems that small drones are another potential avenue of exploitation in asymmetric warfare.

> The US military is better than the next top three militaries combined.

Partially due to institutional experience and economies of scale (for certain capabilities). We probably still exceed what the next top 3 powers (China, Russia, India, BTW) are spending in PPP terms, so it shouldn't be that surprising.

> The Ukraine war is showing the superiority of decades old Western tech.

For every video of HIMARS blowing up a Russian ammo depot, there's a video of Ka-52 helicopters popping M2 Bradleys from 5+ km away.[1] M777s were lauded for their accuracy....until they broke. [2] Ukrainian brigades have been lavishly equipped with Western armored vehicles and they've bounced off a brick wall of positively-ancient minefields and artillery, very similar to the defense-in-depth that the Soviets used to defeat the Germans at Kursk ...in 1943.[3]

This conflict is so complex in terms of difficult-to-measure soft factors that are influencing the battlefield (training, maintenance, corruption, NATO ISR support, information operations/propaganda, etc.), that drawing conclusions about the merits of individual technical systems or especially the overall tech base of the two main powers (Russia vs "the West") as a whole is....unwise.

[1]https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/ukraines-armor-appears...

[2]https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/25/us/ukraine-artillery-brea...

[3]https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/26/world/europe/ukraine-coun...

The war in Ukraine is showing that the "superpowers" aren't so super. It's showing just how much of the military superiority is propaganda and nothing more. But we already knew that, because the US just went through what Russia is now going through.

The US just lost a 20 year war in Afghanistan against cave dwellers with Soviet-era rifles, homemade explosives and random bits from the bottom of a toolbox. You'd think maybe they'd have busted out the ray guns or spaceships instead of taking the L.

> The US just lost a 20 year war in Afghanistan against cave dwellers with Soviet-era rifles, homemade explosives and random bits from the bottom of a toolbox.

To be fair the US left Afghanistan and the remaining Afghani army crumbled to the taliban pretty quickly.

I’d say the two situations are very different, the US successfully occupied a country that was ~7000km from them.

The Russians have so far failed to take a city that’s ~200km from their own border in about 1 and a half years.

To be even more fair, the US lost the War in Afghanistan. It's an unambiguous Taliban victory. That's how it will read in every history book that doesn't have an American flag and a bald eagle on it. 20 years there and all the US did was create a whole new generation of terrorists who will spend the rest of their lives seeking revenge.

We lost, but it wasn't a military loss, it was a catastrophic failure of diplomacy.

We had control for a long time.

It was a military loss. When one military quits and runs away really fast that’s a loss. And it’s not the first time. When the US loses they hold a parade and say, “We left.” Such a joke. And American citizens never hold their government accountable. Instead they just believe the BS and do it all over again. Kind of amazing, really. No shame.

Vietnam was a military loss.

If you have control of an area and mismanage it for years, that's not a military loss. Failure at that point is something different.

Sure if you want to frame it that way.

But it’s still not comparable to Ukraine.

The sheer scale involved is completely different and really shows the ability of the US to project force.

Whereas Russia is currently struggling to get 200km from their own border.

The causalities scales are also hugely different. The Russians have taken likely close to 5x the causalities in about 1/4 the time.

Russia is clearly not a super power but that doesn’t mean other countries like America aren’t.

Tbf, it's hard to fight back when a portion of the Taliban was explicitly sheltered by a faction of a nuclear armed state's intelligence service.

The war is showing that Western superpower tech is far in advance of Soviet and post-Soviet tech (in most areas), but that tech can't win all wars. Russia buys drones from Iran which contain parts from many western companies (most of which were manufactured in China), which I think tells you a lot about the relative levels of technology. I doubt the Ukranians would have made it so far with so much relative success without US intelligence and materiel. if we gave them lots more air assets and they used them well, it would give them a huge advantage over Russia, which seems to have somehow lost its air force.

As for Afghanistan, well, of course never get involved in a land war in Asia. But that wasn't a conventional war, and our military is intended to fight conventional wars. Our forces really are not set up to respond to the Taliban.