You need to be consistent. If aircraft carriers are 'toys' for the American military, it must also be 'toys' for the Chinese military as well.
Am not saying that the result in Iraq will be the same for Russia or China. But Iraq used a lot of Soviet and Chinese derived weapons and training. At the time of Desert Storm, the three countries were pretty much similar in terms of military capabilities minus the nuclear weapons. The Soviets was slightly ahead. But if we take into consideration combat experience, then Iraq was ahead of China because of the decade long Iran-Iraq War. The disparity between the US and Iraq was evident and it jolted China into a realization that if there is a shooting fight between the US and China, China would lose as badly as Iraq did. China then entered a modernization program to make her military more professional in line of the Western militaries.
That is like saying the Army depends too much on the rifle. I fail to see how 'smart' weapons have any relationship to on how the Army create or discover intelligent field commanders.
For a democracy, and despite your unbelief that the US is a functional democracy, popular sentiment matter if the country is going to war. The point I was trying to make was that the restraint we have in Iraq was not because we were afraid of fighting but because IF we were to fight the way we want to win overwhelmingly, the PR fallout could be detrimental for the support of the war. Of course, you could always come out and advocate that we disregard popular sentiments altogether.
Did you know that whenever Giap tried to fight the French in 'set piece' battles, despite his numerical superiority, he always lost? Same when Giap tried to fight the Americans later? Did you ever put an objective mind to the many analysis of the battle of Dien Bien Phu where they outlined how Giap was actually an average commander despite the facts that his forces held the superior high ground, outnumbered and outgunned the defenders, but the siege took months and he lost more men? Did you know that Giap nearly evicted the Chinese advisors from the battlefield because he had enough of their incompetence when they ordered only what they know best from Korea -- human wave attacks? Fort Sill Artillery's paper regarding Dien Bien Phu was the most generous to Giap, others from foreign armies were not as kind but all are worth reading.
Giap was a wily guerilla commander and deserve respect for that, but he was also wise enough of his own limitations that even though he planned the 1968 Tet Offensive he opposed its execution. Did you know that? This factoid is not a secret but a cynic would argue often deliberately omitted from many commentaries. Giap felt that the NVA/VC forces could not stand against the combined ARVN/US forces, despite the incompetency of the ARVN. Giap did not believe the South Vietnamese were so antagonistic towards their government that they would rise up in rebellion. The Politburo overruled Giap and ordered the offensive anyway. The offensive gained nothing and the VC was nearly wiped out. Before 1968, the VC was able to field battalion strength if they needed. After the failed offensive, so many South Vietnamese turned against the VC that they could muster up at best squad level. After the 'Vietnamization' of the war, by early 1972, most US Army forces were out of the fighting, leaving the ARVN and the USAF. Giap thought he could achieve easy victories. Once again he underestimated the effectiveness of air power like he did when he fought against France. Giap had no experience at coordinating ground and air forces, he knew of this inexperience but pressed ahead anyway. The result was his defeat in late 1972 at the Easter Offensive and South Viet Nam existed until 1975 when the US Congress refused to fund the war further. At no time during the war did Giap militarily gained the upper hand for long.
It was the weariness of the American public that eventually compelled their government that the war was not worth supporting, not that Giap was the military 'genius' that many hyped him up to be. If you have enough men and is callous for their lives, eventually you will wear down an enemy who does not have the same disregard for his own. So when a superpower like the US withdrew from Viet Nam without achieving its political objective -- the continuing independence of South Viet Nam -- naturally popular perceptions and conclusions will be that the US was militarily defeated by an intellectually superior enemy. There were many defeated Nazi generals but no one discredited them the way the American generals were discredited. The reason why the US was 'defeated' in Viet Nam was not because the ARVN/US alliance could not militarily defeat the NVA but because the American political leadership failed to grasp the fact that there was a great difference in political goal between the two sides: The communists wanted the whole country but the ARVN/US alliance wanted partition ala Korea.
The political goal set the military objectives. If both sides had the same political goal, which is to put the country under one regime, then the ARVN/US alliance would have overrun the NVA a long time ago with clearly superior firepower. But because the ARVN/US alliance was set on going no further north than the 17th parallel, that gave the communists a clear strategic advantage from the start because they knew that they will always have a secured place to retreat, regroup and rebuild. If they needed respite from the American bombing campaigns, all they have to do is plead for 'negotiations' and the ARVN/US alliance would respond. Everyone knew the game and how hamstrung the ARVN/US alliance was. Despite that strategic advantage, the communists still had to violate the territorial sovereignty of two neighbors, Laos and Cambodia, to create the Ho Chi Minh Trail to support the VC. This flanking movement was not possible with Korea so the Korean peninsula became divided.
I do not claim to be a ground troop movements or artillery expert but what I am is a patient reader. I read between $100-150 a month in non-work related books and news magazines. I have read enough of objective analysis, devoid of the fawning Giap military 'genius' myth, to know that while a competent and shrewd commander like Giap is valuable and should be respected, there come a time when the technological gap between the war contestants is so great, as in even Giap himself recognized how inferior his forces were compared to the Americans, that it will take a political disaster like the American political leadership's abandonment of an ally before the technologically inferior can claim victory.
This generalization is indisputable. But I do not see this is happening in the US military. In fact, the goal have always been to make the equipment as 'field serviceable' as possible, even for aviation. Out West I am within one day's drive to Nellis, Mountain Home and several other USAF bases, the ways the kids today maintain their charges make me jealous.
Guerilla tactics have never won a war and please do not bring up the Vietnam War. The VC was an insurgent arm and a terrorist organization for the NVA. The various 'resistance' groups in WW II never drove out Nazi Germany. Same for the Pacific side of WW II against Imperial Japan. In mainland China, Chennault's Flying Tigers was the air equivalent of a 'resistance' group. A guerilla campaign is an acknowledgement that one side has lost the fight and has to resort to harassment tactics, not actual combat to defeat an enemy. This become a contest of long term will power.
Iraq could not even handle Iran without the help from the US.