One truth of warfighting is that there is a level of expertise that builds within your services that is passed down generation to generation. Even when we, as a western nation that as we all know will often require a purging of the summer children leaders before periods of major conflict (this was true even "back in the day" of WWI and WWII), still that knowledge base translates into real advantages on the battlefields.
So Iran for instance. Even a major force like China... They are not going to do well vs our Navy. China can steal technologies from us. They can build carrier killer missiles they launch from shore and all that. But as it pertains to open water dominance they still can't sniff our jocks. This btw is one of the things that made Japan so deadly an opponent in WWII, was that their admiralty and officer corps was trained by us heavily in all our doctrines.
Anyway I will admit we are entering an era where there is going to be a significant shift in the doctrines upon which so much warfare is built. And the one value of the war in Ukraine, from the US perspective, has been the eye-opening effectiveness of drone and AI warfare. Lasers are also significantly matured, and the arrival of AI in conjunction means pilots are going to be obsolete very soon. They are not going to be able to project power in the air without taking out batteries of anti-aircraft that include lasers which arrive instantly, and coordination via AI networks spells doom for any non-stealth aviation assets.
Sorry about the soapbox. I love this shit. And I love the US driving the cutting edge on it even more. And seeing Iran get their asses kicked gives me wood. Figuratively speaking. No really.
