A nation’s ability to fight a modern war is as good as its technological ability.
Frank Whittle
A nation’s ability to fight
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One of the ironies of the OP is that Whittle backed the inferior early paradigm of jet-engine design…
That said, it also depends on what you mean by “technological ability”: If you restrict it to ability to create wonder weapons (compare, for example the Me262 to Clarke’s story “Superiority”), it’s absolutely wrong. It’s just mostly wrong with a more “top to bottom technological ability” approach — the primary counterexample being the Drang noch Osten, although in the West and the Far East the technological capability of front-liners to maintain their weapons systems was indeed critical (and, in the Far East, ultimately decisive).
Uh, yeah.
But will to fight is way more important.
No significant war has been won solely via tech.
Look at Ukraine, early months.
It wasn’t superior tech that let Ukraine stop the russians or even the russians own limitations, but the total mobilization of the popuation.
Zelenskyy’s line sums it up best: “The fight is here; I need ammunition, not a ride.”
Or, a hundred years ago:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=HVQ3ourS8BI
Today I Learned that advice was a song and not merely an amusing expression.
It’s all over Fallout 76’s in-game radio.
As the DJ says, it is very appropriate for post-war appalachia.
Maybe they’ll use it on the video series.